


In Another Castle

by Catwithamauser



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Abduction, Angst, F/M, Kidnapper!Frank, Kidnapping, Reverse Stockholm Syndrome, Stockholm Syndrome, Unproblematic kidnapper Frank, kidnapping kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 178,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8833450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catwithamauser/pseuds/Catwithamauser
Summary: …There’s another sigh from the man in front of him, as he runs a hand through his lanky hair, still scowling. “You know it doesn’t work that way Frank.”“We also don’t kidnap children,” Frank snaps, bristling, because its not on him, the other man shouldn't be the one that’s angry.  They have standards, goddamnit…Or, Frank kidnaps Laurel.  That's the last thing that goes according to plan.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so normally I would not be there for kidnapping fics, AT ALL, because they edge way too close to everything I’m not down for; shitty power dynamics and rampant sexism and a good dose of disbelief suspension. But I dunno, I wanted to give myself a challenge and the idea of Frank kidnapping Laurel wouldn't go away after we got a bit of her backstory because as long as the whole thing was as unproblematic as humanly possible, kidnapper Frank fic might be fun. And it wouldn't leave me alone. 
> 
> And here we are: The fic in which Frank, shittiest kidnapper alive, kidnaps Laurel who is not really interested in having Stockholm Syndrome thank you very much, even though Frank is very cute and very sweet and very persistent and may or may not try to take her on a date while she’s handcuffed. And then everything goes to shit.

He starts laughing as soon as Chris tells him, barely has time to slide into the slippery plastic booth in the back of the diner before Chris springs it on him, springs laughter on him before he can stifle it, keep himself quiet and not attract the attention of the other diners.

The bored looking waitress, much more alert now, sidles over, watchful and cautious, and fills Frank’s cup with coffee while throwing glances over at another waitress, glances Frank can’t interpret, though he thinks ultimately the woman decides he’s harmless, because she turns at the call of another customer, leaves Frank and Chris alone.

“You fucking kidding me?” he asks when he can finally breathe around his laughter. Except Chris looks serious, mouth pulled into a tight scowl, doesn’t look like he’s joking. He better be joking, Frank thinks, an edge of worry stepping into place in the forefront of his mind. He better be joking, because if not, if not, things have suddenly gone very very badly for both of them, are about to get much worse.

Chris sighs, looks away, miserable, knows how badly Frank’s gonna take the news. “If it’s a joke, no one told me.”

Frank stops laughing instantly, shrugs. Yup, very, very bad. “I’m out then.”

There’s another sigh from the man in front of him, as he runs a hand through his lanky hair, still scowling. “You know it doesn’t work that way Frank.”

“We also don’t kidnap children,” Frank snaps, bristling, because its not on him, Chris shouldn't be the one that’s angry at him.

They have standards, goddamnit. They may be criminals, pretty successful ones at that, but there are lines they don’t cross, some things they won’t do, at least there have been. Till now. They don’t touch families, certainly not children, try to avoid violence, murder, kidnappings where they can. “It doesn’t work that way either, Chris.”

Chris shrugs, his hands shoved in the pockets of his coat, eyes drifting to his feet, jaw tight. “It does now.”

“Who does this come from?” Frank presses, because this is clearly an order, clearly a task they must accept, but Chris looks far, far too miserable for it to be their standard assignment, for it to be quite as simple as it sounds, and kidnapping is never, ever simple.

“Not sure,” Chris mumbles, like he knows that’s exactly what Frank doesn’t want to hear. “Someone high, higher than Mauro. He didn’t seem excited about it either.”

“They don’t have anyone else?”

The other man shakes his head, still scowling, still keeping his eyes fixed somewhere near Frank’s left foot. “It’s ours. I did try though, you know I woulda. I know kidnappings get you jumpy.”

Frank nods stiffly. “Well, alright then,” he says, grinning ruefully, sarcastically. “I guess I’m in then. Since I don’t have a choice.”

“Wanna hear the rest of the job?” Chris asks, cracking a tentative smile, rolling his eyes at Frank. “Since you’re so enthusiastically in.”

“Does it really matter?” Frank asks, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice, failing. Mostly he likes working for Mauro, the other man generally knows what Frank and the boys are good at, the kind of jobs they will perform well on, lets them reject a few here and there if something really rubs them the wrong way. And he pays them well, keeps them busy, doesn’t ask them to go back to being the petty thugs they were at eighteen, uses them instead for the more sophisticated work; heists, extortions, things that occasionally require some brains. But sometimes, sometimes Frank wishes he worked for himself, because this job, well, this job he’d slam the door on before anyone even managed to get the word ‘kidnap’ out of their mouths. “Kidnap the kid, ask for some ransom, wait. Do I really need to know why I’m fucking a kid’s life up?”

“Frank,” Chris warns, like Frank’s a kid again, doesn't know the ropes, doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut and just go along with the things he can’t change. “You can’t be like this, man. We were given a job, and we don’t wanna do it, but we gotta and we’re going to. And we’re gonna do it well. Because we’re fucking professionals. You got it?”

He crosses his arms over his chest, glares across the table at Chris. It’s not Chris’s place to lecture him either, Frank’s gonna do the job and they both know it, but he has every goddamn right to call a disaster a disaster, even if its only to Chris, it’s practically his duty, because then at least the two of them can try to plan for it. “Yeah, I got it.”

“Good. Mark’s Jorge Castillo, some tech guy. Works outta Miami.”

“And the kid?”

“Daughter,” Chris clarifies. “Laurel. Sixteen, goes to some fancy Catholic school in Palm Beach. Security’s shit.”

Frank laughs. “Security’s always shit. Wait,” he pauses, voice suddenly tight as his brain begins to make the delayed connections. “How do you know its shit already. You doing prep work without me?”

Chris’s mouth twists, into a scowl, then smooths out into a thin, flat line. That expression, Frank thinks, says more than words ever could, tells him just how bad Chris thinks things are, even if he won’t admit it, and that he’s trying to keep it from Frank, trying to pretend everything is fine. Which means the situation is worse than even Frank suspects. Fucking great. “Someone else did the prep, the scouting,” he finally admits, voice low and too fast.

“Who?” Frank snaps.

“Guys who hired Mauro to hire us,” he shrugs, too quick, too casual.

“Ain’t gonna work,” Frank shakes his head, scowling. “I’m not trusting some asshole’s prep work, trusting his info’s good. I’m not doing shit till I confirm it for myself.”

“Frank,” Chris says, almost pleading now. “They want a rush on this. We don’t have time to do it all ourselves.”

“Then we gotta make time,” Frank insists, sinking feeling settling low in his stomach like dread. He barely knows a damn thing about this job, but he knows already it’s a disaster, knows already there’s something, something crucial and looming, that he’s not being told, maybe can’t be told, but he knows he has a blindspot going into this the size of Manhattan. And he doesn’t like it one damn bit, because he’s not going to see the bullet, the handcuffs coming for him now. And he always likes to see the oncoming disaster, always likes to stay one step ahead of the things coming for him, so that when they do, he might just make it out unscathed. 

He’s spent too long, too much time watching his back, watching for the unexpected blow to stop now, not now when he’s finally out of lockup, finally free, finally making a life for himself, no longer has guards, other prisoners breathing down his neck, waiting to jump on him when he falters, flinches. No, Frank knows he has to remain watchful, on guard, because the life he’s constructed for himself can be destroyed with one wrong step, one wrong breath. And he’s never going back to that place, never going to be locked behind walls, have his hands, his ankles shackled, never again going to lose his freedom.

“Frank,” Chris says again. “They didn’t give us time for that.”

Frank’s hands tense into fists and he can hear the grind in his jaw. “When’s the deadline?”

“Want things ready to go by the end of the week,” Chris says, eyes trying to meet Frank’s but hovering somewhere over his left shoulder, like he just can’t, just can’t meet Frank’s gaze and admit how fucked up things are, already. “They want us to try and take her Friday.”

He nods, stiffly, avoids the temptation to growl, to curse. It’s fucking Monday afternoon already, no time at all to plan a fucking kidnapping, even with someone else’s prep. It’s no time to learn the landscape, learn the patterns of the mark, her friends, her family, learn her rhythms and her reactions, how to take her without injury, without a scene, without being fucking caught. “Gimme the rest of your info and I’ll head down this afternoon. Do what I can before Friday.”

Chris nods. “You want me to book you something?”

“I’ll do it myself,” Frank says, mostly out of pettiness, he recognizes that. He’s hurt and upset and really, really doesn’t want to do this job, and he knows he’s taking it out on Chris. That doesn’t mean he’s gonna stop. “So why’re we going after this kid?”

The other man shrugs, swipes a hand through his blonde hair, scrubs nervously at the back of his head. “Wanna know what they told me, or you wanna know the real story?”

Frank rolls his eyes, gives him a long, scoffing look.

“Official story is money,” Chris tells him, his face carefully neutral. Frank’s known Chris for years, the other man taking him under his wing when Frank first landed in juvie, barely twelve and baby faced, his voice still high and cracked, easy prey for the older boys until Chris, sixteen and already a man heard about the tiny Fishtown boy accused of trying to kill his dad, Chris feeling some strange protective impulse for the boy from his old neighborhood. After he got out at eighteen, Chris still visited, made the trek up near the New York border every week, faithfully, for four years, grabbed a Greyhound out of Philly on Friday night and went up to see Frank every weekend for four years, more often than his family ever did, went up to make sure Frank was still ok, still surviving in the hellhole of the juvenile detention facility. Frank has worked with Chris since he got out two years ago, since Chris scooped him up a week out and introduced him to Mauro. He knows his expressions, knows his moods, his little tics. And Frank knows Chris is trying his hardest not to give anything away on his face, his dislike, his apprehension, Frank thinks.

“And the real one?”

“Not sure, but I know it ain't money. Castillo’s got some tech company, yeah?” Chris begins, waiting for Frank’s nod. “Started out in Mexico city in the 90’s, did some contracts for the government. Cyber security, weapons systems, things like that.”

“We extorting him for access to tech?” Frank asks, because this job is five minutes in and already getting way more complicated, way more like a bad crime novel, a bad spy movie than he wanted, than he thinks is good for his continued freedom, his economic prospects. He can handle kidnapping, he doesn’t like it, but he can handle it. Like he told Chris, kidnapping is just nab the victim, make the demands, wait. 

But this, this is not just a demand for money, not just extortion, this is probably corporate espionage, and Frank’s pretty self-assured, pretty confident in his abilities, but they’re petty mafia goons, really, there’s no sugar coating what they are.

He and Chris are not criminal masterminds, they’re not tech geniuses. They can rob a bank and crack a safe and jack a car, they can rough a guy up for not paying Mauro protection money, can crack a few ribs to get the information they’re paid to uncover. But hell, Chris can’t do much beyond write emails, and unless its tracing a phone, unless its digging into bank accounts, well, Frank’s pretty lost at that point too.

“Doesn't sound like it,” Chris says, pretending that he’s unconcerned with all the ways this can go south, all the ways this'd screams its not a typical kidnapping, which are never, ever typical to begin with.

Typical goomba, Frank thinks, wanting to be mad, wanting to yell and force Chris to understand. But Chris is who he is, he gets a job, he follows orders and he’s damn good at what he does. But when things go off script, when things go south, Chris is not the man you want in your corner. He doesn’t see all the ways this isn't their typical job, all the ways this has already gone pear shaped. He’s not trying to stay three steps ahead of the disasters that could so easily derail their plans. But Frank is.

“Then what’s the deal?” Frank asks.

“Damned if I know,” Chris says with a exasperated eyeroll, annoyed, Frank thinks, that he’s asking so many seemingly unnecessary questions.

Frank scowls, resolves to dig a little deeper than Chris seems willing to. “They tell us how much?”

“Ten mill,” Chris says with a wide, eager smirk.

“And our take?”

His grin spreads wider, sharp and pleased. “Fifty large for each of us. Plus expenses.”

Frank nods, feels his frown grow, feels dread settle in his stomach. It’s too much, too much to just be a week long kidnapping stint, just a grab, demand and wait. He doesn’t know what the catch is, but Frank’s smart enough to know there is one, knows things aren’t quite so obvious, quite so easy as they look, as Chris thinks they are.

“Oh c’mon Frank,” Chris prompts, gives him another weary, urging grin. “It’ll be easy money. Fifty thou for a week, ten days maybe, don’t be so dour.”

“Big word for you,” Frank jokes, trying to lighten the mood, lighten his mood. But its not easy, because he knows this is a disaster waiting to happen.

“I bought tickets down for Tuesday night,” Chris tells him, chuckling. “If you remember, would you do pick up?”

“Where we staying?” Frank asks, taking a long, deep breath, a long exhale as he pushes down his worry. He hates kidnapping, and he knows he’s gonna hate this one too.

“They’ve got a house for us,” the other man says, pulling up something on his phone, passing it across to Frank. “Off in the suburbs somewhere. Finished basement, soundproofing too.”

Frank takes the phone, glances at the picture of the little ranch house, small and squat and perfectly innocent. “Enough bedrooms?” he asks, because he likes Chris, hell, the other man is his partner, his brother in all but blood, and he’s shared cramped spaces for near on half his life, but he’s out now, a free man, and he likes his space, likes his silence now that he has it, never wants to give it up, give it back.

Chris nods. “And before you ask, its at the end of the block, away from the nosy housewives.”

“Good. You have a plan?”

Chris’s eyes slide away again, scowling deeply. “We’ve got a ringer.”

Frank stills, hands tightening into fists. “A ringer?” he asks, voice edged.

“Yeah,” Chris nods. “Whoever hired Mauro to hire us, they’re sending someone along. We don't gotta plan nothing.”

“We’re just the muscle?” Frank clarifies, trying to tamp down the anger, the little niggling feeling like worry at the back of his mind.

Chris nods. “Basically.”

“And we’ll be the ones to take the fall when things go south.”

“Frankie,” Chris practically pleads. “It’s not gonna be like that.”

“Yes,” Frank tells him, getting up from the table, weary, so fucking weary already. He hates kidnappings. “If things go south, that’s exactly how its gonna be.”

“No,” the other man assures him. “Because you’re gonna be obsessive and figure out all the contingencies and we’re gonna pull things off without a hitch.”

“Yeah,” Frank agrees. “I am. But that doesn’t mean a ringer isn't gonna fuck things up. We don’t have anything like all the details, Chris, and it’s gonna screw us.”

He throws a couple bills on the table to cover the coffee neither of them have been drinking, heads out and back to his place.

Chris may not know why this kidnapping’s happening, might not know the truth behind their assignment, but Frank’s gonna find out, gonna dig until he gets to the truth. It’s won’t make a difference, won’t change a damn thing, but he’s gonna know, gonna know how or why or when things are gonna go south, try and prepare for it, try and prevent it if he can.

He spends the rest of the afternoon plugging away at the computer, finding whatever he can about Jorge Castillo, tries to find out who would want to hurt him badly enough to kidnap his child.

Chris was right, of course, Castillo owns some tech firm that makes weapons or some weapons firm that makes tech, something like that. The website is hopelessly vague and nothing else on the internet seems particularly edifying. They do cyber security and manufacture drones, arms, its all very vague and mysterious. Whats’s not mysterious, Frank finds, is how Jorge Castillo managed to amass his power, his vast wealth. That, at least, soon becomes clear.

In the late 90’s, Jorge Castillo and his firm were working for the Mexican government, doing cyber security, helping them with their security systems, their armaments. Helping them build, refine their advanced weapons systems, their emerging cyber systems. And then he stole a bunch of designs, a bunch of files, stole the plans and and back doors into the army’s closed databases, sold them to the highest bidder and fled to Florida.

He is still listed on the Mexican governments version of the FBI’s Most Wanted, there’s still some kind of on-going argument, some feud between Mexico and the US over extraditing him back to stand trial.

Frank’s not a genius, but he’s pretty sure its not the Mexican government that’s behind this kidnapping. If they wanted Castillo, they’d get someone to grab him, not his kid.

He digs a little deeper, tries to find someone who got screwed, got fucked when Jorge pulled off his heist. He finds plenty, puts the most likely ones on a list, resolves to investigate them all further, figure out who and why Frank and Chris and Neal have been hired for this kidnapping, figure out what the aim is, what they hope to accomplish with this kidnapping, hope to get money or something more. 

He wants to make sure the kidnapping isn't just some cover to kill the girl, some excuse to put two in the back of her head, dump her body somewhere in the Everglades and be done with it, send a message to her father about screwing over his friends, his enemies, leaving him uncertain about his child’s fate, but certain that it’s terrible, painful, horrible.

He’ll kill if he has to; to protect himself, protect Chris, his partner, his brother, protect the people he loves, to keep himself out of handcuffs, but never if he can avoid it, never if he doesn’t absolutely have to. And this, this certainly seems like a death he ought to be able to avoid, as long as it’s a real kidnapping and not a murder dressed up like a kidnapping. And he’s not sure, not at all, because he doesn’t know who’s hired him and certainly doesn’t know if he can trust them and nothing he’s found out so far makes him confident that there’s not a hidden purpose behind the plan.

He quits his research just long enough to buy a ticket to Miami, pack a backpack full of haphazard clothes, his usual surveillance gear and head to the airport.

His list of Castillo’s enemies only grows longer, more opaque. And Frank grows more and more worried, more and more convinced he doesn’t even have half the story, that he’s deliberately being denied the story, treated as nothing more than a hired gun.

He rents car, finds a hotel outside of Palm Beach where things are a little cheaper, a little more rundown, grabs some supplies he didn’t want to bring on the plane; rope, tape, a couple of zip ties, plastic sheeting too; can’t decide whether he hopes the wide eyed nervous glance the kid behind the counter shoots him means the cashier thinks he’s just into fifty shades of grey or something and not planning a kidnapping.

He heads even further out of town to a strip mall, buys a burner. He always, always buys a new burner for each new job, never likes leaving a trail that could ever be used to connect him to crimes, even though Chris makes fun of him as overly paranoid. But its what he does and it hasn’t let him down yet. He uses the phone in the hotel to call Chris’s own burner, passes along his new number, which he knows Chris will memorize, won’t program it in even though doing so will never lead back to Frank. They, each of them, have their own rituals, their own superstitions necessary to keep them safe on jobs.

He half thinks about driving past Castillo’s house, scoping out the terrain, but decides against it once he Google Maps the house, realizes how gigantic it is, how certain it is to have private security which will end this damn job before it even begins.

He resolves to scope out the school the next day, figure out the girl’s routine; how she gets to school, when she leaves and with who, whether she stays after for anything, whether that something leaves her alone, where and when she is alone, if ever and, most importantly, where the safest, best place to take her is without being noticed, without being seen.

He leaves behind his research on Castillo, focuses on the daughter instead. Laurel Castillo, sixteen, enrolled in St. Anne’s Catholic High School, co-ed but straight laced, strict even. On the honor roll, runs cross country, well enough he finds some articles about her in the local paper, even one with a picture. 

The picture from the article shows a thin, dark haired girl, pale, but with flushed cheeks and her hair plastered against her skull, unsmiling, her jaw tight as she dutifully clutches her first place medal for the camera. He thinks, staring at the picture for far longer than he should, she looks like she dropped any pretense at politeness, dropped the medal the instant the picture was taken, dropped any semblance of interest in the matter.

He hunts for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram accounts, finds a girl who is serious, almost dour, rarely smiling in any of her pictures even at parties, even surrounded by her friends. She doesn’t look unhappy, just focused, intense, like she’s too busy thinking of something else, doing math equations in her head or something to be grinning with the rest of her friends.

Everything about the girl is serious, he finds, though her Twitter, Facebook feeds show a girl full of a strange, sharp humor he doesn’t expect, smart and edged and sarcastic.

She’s on the debate team, though doesn’t seem to have distinguished herself, letting others take the spotlight, the glory or accolades or whatever debate nerds get instead of laid, lets others shout themselves hoarse to make their points, preferring to stay quiet and in the background. She’s listed as a Secretary of the student government, President of the Latinx student association, a member of Amnesty International and is some kind of editor for the yearbook. 

She’ll be busy, Frank thinks, almost every day, staying late after school, hopefully alone, exhausting herself between school and homework and clubs in an effort to get the best grades, get into the best college, throwing herself at the wall of money and success and whatever it is rich people are after. 

It’ll make it easier for them to nab her though, Frank thinks, easier for them to get her away, get her to the safe house before anyone notices she’s gone. He scrolls through the rest of her social media, tries to identify where she goes when she’s not at school, the beach or the movies or the mall or the nearest Starbucks. It seems, he finds, mostly friend’s houses, the occasional shot on the beach or on a boat, sometimes something that must be a restaurant, a diner, but nothing consistent. No pattern seems to emerge, though Frank is forced to admit its because she doesn’t post terribly regularly either; not to any of the usual suspects.

He goes through all the photos she’s tagged in too, the ones her friends have posted. Laurel Castillo is still serious, still rarely smiling, rarely quite as wild as the rest of her friends, but occasionally he finds a candid shot, taken when she appears not to expect it, not to realize the camera is there and he catches a glimpse of a wide grin, wild, and of blue eyes that pierce through the computer screen, her hair messy and her limbs nothing but angles. The next one, the next picture where its clear Laurel Castillo was taken unaware, she’s grinning slow and heavy, crooked with only a hint of teeth showing, her gaze less intense but still, there’s something in it that Frank can’t seem to look away from.

There’s only a few more of them, but they tell him more about Jorge Castillo’s daughter than he thinks she’d tell him herself.  
As he pours through her online life, a picture emerges, clearer than when he was just getting the outlines from the newspaper articles, from her class schedule, what she did rather than who she was. The basics haven’t changed, he thinks, she’s still serious, but not so serious that there aren’t more than a few pictures of her around a bonfire or huddled with her friends while clutching a red solo cup, her grin easy with alcohol. 

She’s reserved, he thinks, but not shy or unfriendly or one of the straight laced Catholic girls he remembers from his own time spent there; the ones who keep their skirts the proper length, always go to Mass and who glared sourly at Frank and his friends as they snuck out to the parking lot to smoke. In fact, as he goes through another dozen photos of Laurel Castillo, he finds one of a group clearly huddled in a parking lot, a cigarette furtively clutched in Laurel’s fingers, the hem of her skirt falling soft across her thighs, dangerously far from her knees, exposing long inches of soft, pale thighs that Frank turns away from, guilt and shame burning across his cheeks.

He finds himself trying to hate her, trying to find something in Laurel Castillo that he hates, that will make it easy to knock her out, bundle her into a car and tie her wrists, stuff her in a basement with her eyes, her mouth covered, keep her there for a week, ten days, two weeks, something that will make him comfortable with the violence he’s been asked to perform, with inevitably ruining a child, ruining her life, scrubbing the small slanted smile from her lips, snuffing the wry fierceness out of her gaze like blowing out a candle. 

Because he knows that’s what he’s been asked to do, that even though he’s certainly going to do his best to avoid violence, avoid as much fear as he’s able, he’s been asked to do something horrible to a child, return her to her father in a week, ten days, two weeks with the light dimmed behind her eyes, with a mouth that no longer knows how to smile, with a wariness, a distrust of the world that he’s not sure she’ll ever be able to shake. He’s been asked to ruin a child and it’s something he doesn’t want to do unless he can find a reason she deserves it, deserves the terrible things he’s going to do to her.

And he can’t, much as he tries. Because Laurel Castillo is a hard girl to hate, even her online presence, which, for a sixteen year old girl, does surprisingly little to annoy Frank. Even her Instagram, which Frank loathes for all its pretty falsehoods, is mostly her and her friends, pictures of clouds or her feet or a mean looking calico cat, strangely cropped pictures of windows, doors, architectural elements he recognizes as Miami.

He likes it, likes her, how strangely removed Laurel Castillo seems to be from her account, like she’s not trying to impress anyone, just taking pictures of things she finds beautiful, interesting. And he doesn’t want to ruin that, feels grieved already that he’s going to.

After Frank’s done with her, he knows, knows, he’s going to, knows Laurel Castillo is going to be ruined. She’s not going to want to take anymore pictures of mean looking cats, no pictures of strange driftwood formations, hyper closeups of her friends’ smiles.

He shuts the computer before he goes any further, can’t stand to look at more of the life he’s going to shatter, can’t stand to see more of Laurel Castillo’s slow, slanted smile, the way her hair hangs across her face like a shield, as though she already knows she will need it.

He goes out to the bar, gets drunk instead, tries to forget Laurel’s Castillo’s deep blue eyes, strangely piercing even through the computer screen, tries to forget the slow, tentative spread of her smile and the guilt gnawing steady at his bones.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention last time, but i guess I will now: this is probably going to be a long-ish one, maybe 30 chapters or so (maybe longer though i hope not...). Its about halfway written and I have an ending I really dig, but it might be a bit between updates just so I can make sure I don't catch up to myself.  
> but because this is a long one, this chapter continues to be a bit of set-up. Next chapter is where actual kidnapping starts to go down.
> 
> Also, yes, Laurel's sixteen here in keeping with canon (and Frank's like 22/23). Because of that, i want to make it super clear i'm going to be as careful as I can to keep this from being problematic (not that the concept's not edging there already). Its a flaurel endgame, but also the kind of fic where they basically dont touch until like chapter 13, so...ask me questions if you got em, but that's probably the last warning i;m giving about things...

He wakes early the next morning, but still not early enough that he catches the girl leave her house. He tries to write it off as unnecessary, figures they’re not going to grab her before school, figures that’s too easy a way to get themselves into trouble since the school will inevitably call her father if she fails to show.

He feels like an asshole, resolves not to say anything to Chris about missing her in the morning and instead just drives out of town, finds the safe house and stocks it with all the things they’ll need, food and shampoo and trash bags and half a dozen other things. He buys a couple jerry cans of gas, stores them in the garage, just in case things go hopelessly south and they need to burn the whole place down, remove any trace of their DNA, her DNA, anything.

He checks with Chris to see when their flight is coming down, knows somethings already gone wrong the second the other man picks up.

“Still need a ride?” Frank asks, caution cording his words as soon as he hears the tension simmering behind Chris’s hello.

“Nah,” the other man says, trying for casual, failing. “Mauro says the ringer’s getting a car or something.”

“I have a car,” Frank points out.

He can practically hear Chris shrug over the line, hear the clench of his jaw. “Mauro says he wants his own. If you want to bring your rental back, you probably could.”

Frank hums. “Ok. Have you even met this ringer yet?”

There’s a long moment of silence and Frank’s stomach drops. “No.”

“Chris…” be begins, as gently as he can, trying to keep as much anger as he can from his words.

“I know Frankie, ok,” he’s cut off before he can get anywhere. “I know. But this is how Mauro says to do it, cause its how he’s being told to do it from someone even higher than him. So its what we’re gonna do. Ok?”

“How they hell we know this guy isn’t gonna come in and just kill the kid, leave us holding the bag like assholes,” Frank snaps. “How do we know we’re not just here to be the fall guys?”

“We don’t,” Chris answers honestly. “We have no idea. But we gotta trust Mauro would never do us like that.”

“What if he doesn’t know?”

“What if,” Chris echoes, his own anger flaring over the line. “What if we get pinched anyway? What if she carries a switchblade and guts us? What if our car gets t-boned fleeing the scene. Can’t worry about what if, Frankie, just gotta do the job.”

“Text me,” he tells Chris stiffly. “Text me when you meet the ringer. Tell me what I should expect. If its no good, I…I’m not gonna back out, but I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

“I will, don’t worry,” Chris assures him. “Now stop worrying. Go do your thing. Figure out how we’re gonna nab the goods.”

Frank chuckles but there’s no humor in his words. “Dunno if you realize, but high schoolers don’t spend much time alone.”

He hears the sound of another shrug. “Then we figure out a way to get her alone.”

“I think the creeper with a van and candy only works in movies,” Frank quips, trying to lighten the mood, trying to reassure Chris, reassure himself that things aren’t going to fall apart, not going to go horribly wrong.

Chris laughs, sharply. “I’ll see you in a few hours Frank. Go figure out our plan.”

“Fuck,” he breathes as Chris hangs up. “Fuck.”

Things aren't bad, not yet, Frank thinks, but they have the potential to be, the potential to go very very badly. The more he learns about the job the less he likes it, the more bad things, traps and pitfalls continue to pop up. He has a bad feeling about the whole job and he doesn’t like it, not at all, hates the hard kernel of nagging worry in his throat.

He heads out to the school after that, parks his car down the block and hopes he gets lucky, hopes he sees the girl. He has binoculars, of course, but the street is a bit too busy for him to crack them out without looking like exactly what he is; a stalker, basically, a kidnapper, a creepy man with candy and a van.

He sees her though, tripping down the steps of the school just after the bell rings at the end of the day, her bag slung over her shoulder and a small smile playing around her lips. She’s surrounded by a group of people he assumes are her friends, bodies jockeying and colliding and their smiles wide, their voices wild, and yet somehow Laurel seems alone, separate, removed from the undulating crowd, like she’s cutting through waves, like parting the sea with just her presence, like she’s some entirely new species, above it all.

He gets out of the car, follows slowly behind the group, follows Laurel as she breaks off after a few blocks, ducks into a coffee shop, alone. He’s close enough to hear her goodbyes to the friends, promises to call later, last shouted jokes, finds out she has to go back to the school at 3:00 to volunteer in the tutoring center. Frank files that away in the back of his mind, feeling only a little twinge of guilt at the idea of kidnapping the girl after a volunteering stint. He’s gonna have to nab her sometime, he knows, and whenever they take her its gonna be bad, going to disrupt her life, completely, irrevocably.

He thinks maybe it would be easy to hate her, hate how regal she seems, how above it all, head held high and haughty. And he tries, stands behind her in the line for coffee, watches her as she scrolls through her phone, stares at her, at her dark hair, strands perfectly messy, tousled, at the way her teeth worry, almost nervously, at her lower lip as she waits. Up close her skin is flawless, smooth and pale and creamy, nothing like the greasy pockmarked ruin Frank remembers having as a teenager. It would be easy to hate her for her wealth, for her looks, her intelligence, for having the life he would’ve dreamed of, killed for at fifteen, locked behind steel and cinderblock walls, no hope of going home, not for years, hate her for half a dozen other things he’s sure he’ll learn about before long. But he can’t, strangely he finds himself liking her, what little he’s seen, the strange photos on her Instagram, the small smile that plays around her lips as she taps away at her phone, the little head bob she occasionally gives in time with what he assumes is her music, completely unselfconscious as her eyes drift close, and she sways in time with the beat. He even likes how she pauses for a moment, looks closely at the flyers tacked to the bulletin board in the corner of the shop, her mouth slanting and her brows pulling in as she takes each flyer in.

He half wants to ask her what’s so damn interesting about flyers for dog sitters and an open mic night and the local farmer’s market, but well, the first rule of kidnapping is always don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t let the mark notice you before you strike.

So instead, he just grabs a paper and the cheapest cup of coffee sold in the place, and settles at a table a few down from the girl, pretends to plug away at the crossword while he studies her, studies her habits. She grabs a textbook out of her bag, and seems to become absorbed in it instantly, doesn’t look up for what seems like hours, not even to sip at her coffee. She just fumbles around, hand searching blindly until it connects with the cup. There’s a method, he thinks after the third time she does it, she slides her fingers along the tabletop, slowly and smoothly back and forth in what looks almost like a grid pattern, until her fingers find the cup.

Its bizarre, Frank thinks, bizarre and fascinating and almost impossibly charming that she won’t look up from her work, won’t even glance up to find the cup. He watches her hunt for the cup again, bring it to her lips and take a long slow sip, letting the cup linger near her mouth, breathing in the scent of the coffee, her eyes slipping closed again, as though to fully focus on the coffee, giving a little hitch to her shoulders so that her hair slips over her shoulders, hangs across her face like a curtain, dark and depthless, shielding her from the world.

He ducks his head, embarrassed to be staring for so long, to be so caught up in watching her, spends the next five minutes actually forcing himself to complete the crossword, trying to pretend he’s not exactly what he is, a disgusting lecherous older man captivated by a child.

But then his gaze returns, he glances back at her and begins to stare again, knows he does. She’s flipping a pen around her fingers, back and forth slowly, as though she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, the movements smooth and practiced, back and forth and weaving through her fingers.

She has nice fingers too, he thinks, long and tapered, and her nails painted the color of eggplants, striking against the paleness of her skin. He forces himself to file that information away in the back of his mind, forces himself to think about work, about his job, files away that she has nails, not long ones, but long enough, long enough to scratch, long enough to be an issue if she tries to fight back. Long enough to leave damning evidence if things go bad.

He wishes he could just appreciate her though, appreciate an attractive girl without having to constantly be making plans, worrying about all the things that can go wrong when he goes and does his best to ruin her life because someone told him to, because her father pissed someone off. He finds himself biting back the urge to tell her, to warn her, to say something that will let her know just what’s coming, what terror and fear and uncertainty is headed for her, is already stalking her steps. He wants to tell her he’s sorry, wants to tell her that it’ll be ok soon enough, that it’ll all be fine if she just lets them do what they need to do, just accepts the terrible things coming that he knows she would never, can never accept.

Forty five minutes later and the girl looks up, glances at the clock and finishes the last of her coffee, packs her textbook away and stands. She cleans up her table, slings her bag over her shoulder and heads out into the bright afternoon light. Frank waits two minutes and follows.

She heads directly back to the school, alone, but the sidewalks are busy, the streets are filled with cars and Frank loses hope that they’ll be able to take the girl anywhere but the school or her home. He expects there will be cameras at the house, and housekeepers and gardeners and maybe a cook or two, resolves to scope it out later as best he can, watch the house from a distance, see if he can get into Jorge Castillo’s payroll and see what staff will be around and when, see if he can spot any cameras from the street. He expects the same from the school, expects a couple of cameras, some staff members lingering around for clubs and sports and tutoring, isn’t sure that anywhere they try and grab her will be a success. He was right when he told Chris that teenagers are rarely actually alone.

Even when Laurel was alone, in the coffee shop, walking down the street, she was never really alone, always surrounded by someone. He thinks it will have to be somewhere like a bathroom, the place where they take her, but then they’ll have to avoid being seen going in, three grown men entering the women’s bathroom in a high school. Hell, three grown men entering a high school is gonna look strange enough unless they do the usual disguise and pretend they’re maintenance men.

And then, and then, his research actually pays off, the hours he spent pouring through every available detail of her life, all the minutiae, all the thousands of Instagram pictures and words of recaps of track meets. Because he remembers; Laurel runs cross country, spends hours alone while she runs along the sand, through the south Florida woods, hours in silence and solitude with only her own breath for company. If Frank finds the route, finds her running schedule, well, that’s all the solution they need to the question of how to get Laurel, how to spirit her away to the ranch house in the suburbs with the soundproof basement.

He grabs his computer, tries to find anything on the cross country team’s website that suggests their typical route for practice. He comes up short, didn’t really expect to find much publicly accessible. He does find the school’s public calendar, discovers that there was track practice Tuesday, will be another on Thursday, but nothing on Friday, the day they’ve been told is the day to stage their kidnapping of Laurel Castillo. Next he finds her Instagram again, scrolls through in the hopes of finding something on her feed, something on her friend’s feeds that would suggest where Laurel runs.

And then he finds it, finds a post from six months ago where she took a picture of what must be the sunrise and the beach and her sneaker clad feet. She geo-tagged it thankfully, some lookout on an isolated running trail that cuts a few miles from her father’s house.

It’s not much of a lead, not much at all, but it’s something, and it’s better than what they’ve had so far. He doesn’t know if she runs the trail consistently, doesn’t know if she still continues to run it or has moved on to other routes, doesn’t even know her schedule if all those other things fall into place. But it’s something, at least. He’ll stake out the trail tomorrow, see if she passes, see if it’s somewhere she still runs in the morning, before school.

It can be what they need, the break they need, the perfect spot to stage their kidnapping without witnesses, without getting caught, without any of the possible disasters Frank can see humming below the surface.

He intends to wait until Laurel leaves school, intends to follow her if he can, get a better idea of her habits, her rhythms, but instead he gets a phone call from Chris.

“Hey,” Frank says, recognizing the other man’s burner number. “You in town?”

“Frank you need to get to the house,” he’s told, Chris ignoring his greeting completely. “As soon as you can.”

“What’s going on?” Frank asks lowly, stomach sinking.

“Martin,” Chris tells him, voice studiously casual, unconcerned. “Our ringer. He wants you here, wants to go over the job.”  
“It can’t wait?” Frank presses, searching for more information, more hints as to what this ringer wants from them, what kind of man he is.

“Nah,” he’s told. “Don’t think it can.”

“Alright,” Frank grunts. “I’ll catch you in a few. That everything?”

There’s a long silence over the line, long and echoing. “Nah, Frankie, nothing else. Just get back here, ok?”

He does, of course he does, because he’s little more than a hired thug and he has to come when his master calls. He finds himself hating Martin as soon as he meets him, clenching his jaw as tightly as he can without shattering his teeth to keep from making his dislike obvious.

He walks through the door of the safe house, finds himself staring down an older man leaning against the wall opposite the front door, glowering at him.

“Martin I assume?” Frank asks, voice low and calm, keeping any confusion from his voice, keeping his annoyance at the idea that this man has been waiting for him, waiting to confront him with something, he’s not sure what.

“Frank,” the other man states, voice deep and smooth. He’s older, well past middle age, his hair shot through with grey, but he holds himself stiffly, rigid almost, like a snake held in suspension just before it strikes. “You’re late.”

“Didn’t know I could be late to something no one told me about,” Frank drawls, trying not to let the beginnings of his anger become evident on his face. He wasn’t happy about a ringer, not from the moment Chris told him about it, and he’s less happy now. Because the way to get a good crew, pull off a good job with that crew is not to stalk around dictating to people, not ordering them around. Frank’s been in the crime business long enough, spent enough time in prison that he knows its loyalty and trust that gets you a success. There may need to be orders sometimes, may need to be a hierarchy to get things done, but just shouting orders without doing anything to create cohesion, create faith in the man giving the orders, well, that’s a sure way for things to head south, to fall apart completely at the first sign of trouble. He’d die for Chris, take a bullet or a stint upstate if it meant he didn’t have to, but that’s cause he knows Chris'd do the same, knows they have his back.

This man, he doesn’t know shit about him, doesn’t know what his strengths are, his weaknesses, doesn’t know how he’s gonna react when the shit hits the fan, and it will, it always will in a kidnapping. He knows he’s ben ordered to trust this man, but trust has to be earned, Frank thinks, and Martin’s doing a shit job of trying to pull that off, coming in and treating Frank like he’s some hired hand who’s part in this is going to be little more than a body.

He crosses his arms over his chest, leans back casually against the doorjam, mirroring the other man’s pose, letting a smirk that edges just the wrong side of sarcastic slip onto his face. He hates this damn job, hates it already, doubts he’s gonna be able to stop hating it for quite a while.

“I’d bet money there’s a long list of things you don’t know,” Martin tells him scowling, not even trying to disguise the fact that he intends his words as an insult. His jaw is tight, and his eyes pin Frank in place, swirling with barely controlled malice. Frank thinks of a snarling animal, held tense and ready, fangs bared and ready to pounce, less a snake now and more like a rabid dog, jaws dripping with foam. He thinks, that whatever politeness, whatever trappings of power and prestige he might wrap himself in, Martin is, at his core, a thug. He’s someone who’s fallback position will always be violence, always be pain and chaos and hurt. Frank spent ten years with men like Martin, locked in close quarters, no way to escape, ten years with men who didn’t care about anyone but themselves, about what they could get for themselves, ten years fighting these men with fists and teeth and whatever weapons he had at hand, and he hasn't lost the ability to spot those kinda men, the hair on the back of his neck prickling, standing on end, sending sharp, shrieking warnings in the back to his mind, urging him to turn away, avoid the man in front of him, try and avoid the coming violence.

Martin may be the perfect man for a kidnapping, Frank thinks, because kidnappings never go right, never turn out well, and if anyone wants to make it out, well, Martin’s just the kind of man you need, a man who will do anything to keep from getting caught, keep from having things go truly south. As long as Martin’s on his side, Frank thinks, he’ll be fine in this, but he knows, already, he’s a long way from being someone Martin’ll risk his hide for. “I know you’re used to doing your own thing, but that’s not how this job is going to run. I’m the boss, and you’re always ready to jump when I say jump, understand?”

“How high, sir?” Frank asks, letting only a hint of his frustration, his anger creep into his words, his mouth twisting into a crooked smirk.

“As high as I fucking tell you and not an inch more.”

Frank swallows hard, tightens his arms further over his chest to keep from letting any of his thoughts sneak onto his face, waits for Martin to be done, because Frank knows, knows, this is a man who isn’t done with him, isn’t done relishing the minor, unimportant victory he thinks he’s scored over Frank. Frank knows men like Martin, thought he had left them behind when he left prison, but he knows the man in front of him, knows his kind, and knows he must proceed with caution, with deliberation if he wants to avoid ruining whatever rapidly fading hope he has of having this job go smoothly.

“Chris says you were running surveillance,” he continues, waiting until Frank nods in confirmation, stiffly, strangely reluctant to share any of what he learned with the other man.

“The target better not have noticed you,” Martin informs him, voice like ice, cold and deadly. “You could have ruined this entire operation before it begins.”

“She didn’t,” Frank assures him quickly, hackles raising. He’s not a fucking idiot, not some two bit amateur, barely able to put together a carjacking. He may hate kidnappings but he’s no stranger to surveillance, not entirely unfamiliar with remaining unnoticed while he watches someone himself.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Martin tells him shortly, voice low and threatening, lip curling into a sneer. “When I say you better be ready to jump when I tell you, I also mean you don’t fucking jump without asking permission first. You’re not to take any actions without running it by me.”

Frank almost scoffs, except he can’t get annoyed when he needs to be wary, on guard. Because this is exactly what he feared when Chris told him they’d be getting a ringer. Martin is clearly someone who’s going to run this operation how he wants, and Frank just has to follow orders, can’t voice his concerns, can’t do anything but grin and try to save his skin when things inevitably get fucked up. He’ll do whatever Martin asks; its pretty clear there’s not a damn thing he can do about that. But he’s gonna be looking for the trap himself, looking for how and where things are gonna go wrong, try to find himself and Chris a way out of it when they do. He’s damn sure Martin won’t care a lick what happens to them when things go bad, pretty sure the other man’ll just turn them into bait or fresh corpses when the cops come their way. “Sure boss.”

“What did you find?” he’s asked. “Hopefully you have something to show for all your unsanctioned efforts.”

Frank spends a long moment leaning against the doorjam, watches Martin for long moments, weighs how much to tell him because there is something about the look in his eyes, something about the twist of his mouth, mean and vicious, that makes him wary of the other man, leaves him distrusting his intentions, leaves him distrusting even how his findings will be used.

He’s hated this job from the first, and he hates it even more now, when he can’t be certain they haven’t already met disaster.

“She runs,” Frank says finally, mouth twisting into a scowl he can’t contain, chooses to offer Martin the best lead he has, hopes it will make things go smoothly so that he doesn’t have to worry about saving his own skin down the line. “Long distance. Probably everyday or close to it. That’ll leave her alone, isolated in a place where we can grab her.”

Martin nods, lips pursing and his eyes narrowing, greedy and mean. “It’s a possibility. I’ll need you to brief me further on that. We’ll have a meeting soon to determine the best options”

“Yeah,” Frank drawls. “Gotta get everyone on the same page, huh?”

The other man nods again, eyes narrowing further in what Frank decides is anger, suspicion. “This is not going to be some half baked operation Frank. We are getting paid far too much to get caught or to botch this job.”

Frank stifles the desire to roll his eyes. “Yeah, course. I don’t particularly want to spend another decade upstate either.”

“Frank,” Martin tells him slowly, gently, like he’s some stupid child, like he’s truly and utterly missed the point. “If this operation goes south, a decade in jail is the least of your worries. You understand?”

Frank nods, stomach sinking. “Yeah, yeah course,” he repeats. He knew it, he thinks, fucking knew this job was going to head south as soon as it began. He knew whoever hired them was bad news, knew they were being set up, basically, as the fall men if things ended in disaster. He doesn’t know, doesn’t really even want to know whether the fatal shot will come from the men who hired them or from Jorge Castillo, his men, doesn’t think in the end it matters much. Dead’s still fucking dead.

The older man inclines his head slightly, like he’s prompting Frank for more.

“She stays after school a lot, probably wouldn’t be impossible to get her there,” Frank shrugs. “But there are cameras, can’t tell if they work or not, not yet. It’d be easier to grab her running if we figure out her routes.”

“What about the house?” Martin glowers, his voice barely above a growl.

“Haven’t gotten there yet,” Frank tells him, feeling like he’s going to get chewed out for not focusing on the house first. It had seemed like a stupid plan to him, grabbing her at the house, because he was dead certain a man like Jorge Castillo would have plenty of security measures in place that a team of knuckleheads weren’t going to be able to do much to get past. Martin, obviously, has other ideas. “It was my next stop.”

“I have a summary of the father’s security measures,” Martin tells him, tapping his fingers against his thigh, pinky to pointer and back, repetitively. Its an empty gesture, a nervous tick or a way to keep himself focused, but he hates it, instantly, hates it as he hates Martin. “Since you’re such a fan of walkabouts, you can go and confirm what’s in place next.”

“You have a preference on how I do that chief?” Frank asks sarcastically.

The other man smiles, more like a sneer, his lip curling. “I’ll leave you to it. See how much leash it takes you to hang yourself.”

Frank smirks, wide and cocky because he can tell it annoys Martin, can tell it needles him. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Martin. Tell me what you want me to find and I’ll find it.”

“I’ll email you the details,” he’s told. “Confirm whether the suspected security measures are in place, determine what others there might be.”

“Seems like any security measures close it off as a good route to take,” Frank ventures cautiously. In any other job, Frank thinks, he wouldn’t hesitate to voice his doubts, wouldn’t hesitate to point out what a terrible idea it already seems to try and grab the girl in her own home, a place she’s familiar in, a place where there will inevitably be others around. But this job, with Martin at the helm, well, Frank thinks, it won’t do him any favors to voice doubt, to voice concern. He’s not a partner in this, he’s just a body, completely disposable.

“That’s probably true,” Martin says shortly and Frank can hear the tension in his voice, the clench of his jaw in the stiffness of his words. “But that’s only going to be decided once we know the truth, once we determine what exactly has been put in place at the house, once we know for sure it’s not a good route.”

“Right,” Frank growls. “Of course. I’ll head over there later tonight.”

“Perfect,” Martin says smoothly. “We’ll meet tomorrow to go over what you’ve found.”

“Am I allowed to check out her route?” Frank asks. “The one I think she runs?”

Martin watches him, long and searching like he’s trying to see through to his thoughts, his motivations. “You are,” he says slowly, as though still trying to figure out why Frank is pressing that route, why he’s advocating so hard for going after Laurel while she’s running. “Take Chris. Don’t let yourself be noticed. Be back by 9:00, I want to get everyone together, run through what we have, make sure everyone knows the plan.”

“I thought we weren’t doing anything till Friday,” Frank ventures cautiously. Of course, he thinks, of course they’re going to get barely 72 hours to plan a kidnapping, try to do it with half baked intelligence that they don’t have time to confirm for themselves.

“Timeline’s moved up,” Martin snaps, jaw tense. “So we’re gonna do it Thursday instead.”

Frank nods, lets out a long breath as his stomach bottoms out, doesn’t even bother to ask why they’re moving on Thursday instead of Friday. “Thursday. Got it.”

“Tomorrow we’ll run through the plan. Both to acquire the package and how we’re going to operate while we have it. “

“Until we get paid,” Frank adds, trying for a quick, cocky grin, hoping he can find some point of connection with Martin, something to lift the tension, the brewing animosity between them. They’re criminals, he thinks, and if there’s one constant among most criminals, it’s a love of money, a desire, a craving for it like a drug. The only exception are the men who get into crime not for love of money, but for love of pain, of violence. And he hopes, desperately, that Martin isn’t a man like that, a man who does what he does out of enjoyment.

But Martin’s face doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, he just regards Frank impassively, unblinking and Frank’s breath catches, his stomach sinking. It doesn’t mean Martin is the kind of man that turned to crime because of a genuine love of it, a genuine delight in causing pain, but it doesn’t discount the possibility, not at all, and Frank finds himself wishing Martin was just greedy, willing to do anything for money and that he didn’t have a sneaking suspicion that Martin couldn’t care less about their payout.

“Ok,” Frank nods then, rolls his eyes to avoid making his thoughts obvious on his face, his worry, his growing dislike. “Good talk Martin, catch ya later.”

“Don’t get caught Frank,” Martin warns him again. “Figure out what security measures there are, figure out if you can grab her out running, but don’t let anyone notice you.”

Frank rolls his eyes again, wants to scoff, want to snap at Martin, wants to point out that he’s not a fucking amateur, that of course he’s not going to get caught like an idiot, but he just swallows that down, bites it back because he knows the other man doesn’t actually care, just wants to needle Frank because he can, because he enjoys it, the power he commands over Frank.

He wanders through the house, leaves Martin standing in the hallway, goes looking for Chris. He finds him eventually in the basement, taping up the plastic sheeting Frank bought the day before, hanging long sheets of it from the ceiling, taping it to the walls, the floor with duct tape.

“We expecting a bloodbath?” Frank drawls as he comes down the last steps into the basement.

Chris looks up, shrugs. “Dunno what we’re expecting,” he shrugs, ripping a long strip of tape from the roll. “Can’t get a good bead on Martin yet.”

“Yeah?” Frank asks, scowl twisting his lips. “Me neither.”

Chris hums. “He’s particular, that’s for sure. Could be a good thing.”

“Could be a bad thing too,” Frank points out.

“Nah,” he says as he presses the strip of tape against the wall, secures the plastic sheeting. “He seems to know what he’s doing. Better than we do.”

“He seems like there’s a lot he’s not telling us,” Frank corrects. “Seems like we’re just being used as hired bodies.”

Chris gives him a long searching look. “What’re you thinking Frank?”

“I’m thinking there’s a lot we don’t know about here, a lot of things going on no one’s telling us,” he pauses, glances quickly at the ceiling, tries to decide whether to put into words what he’s beginning to suspect. “I think if things go pear shaped, we’re the first to go.”

“We’re always the first to go, bud,” the other man tells him, shaking his head ruefully. “You’re paranoid Frankie. You hate kidnappings and its making you crazy.”

He shakes his head, scowls. “That’s not it. There’s something about this job, everyone’s done everything for us already, all the leg work. And they just wheeled us in to be bodies. I wanna know why?”

“Cause they can do investigations, they can’t do the legwork,” Chris suggests with a shrug.

Frank just fixes him with a long, derisive look. “We’re just fucking bodies Chris and that means we’re disposable.”

“You’re thinking too much about this, man,” Chris tells him, shaking his head as he hangs another sheet. “It’s fine, you’ll see.”

Frank sighs, scrubs a hand across his beard, lets it go because its no use arguing with Chris, not this close to the job, to the moment of truth. “Sure, ok. Martin wants me to take you with me tomorrow, by the way. Early. Target runs long distance, we’re gonna scope out the trail.”

Chris looks up sharply. “How early?”

“Five, six maybe.”

He anticipates the other man’s groan before it comes, the long string of curses and the roll of duct tape that’s flung at his head. He reaches out, laughing, catches it easily and tosses it back. “Martin’s orders. You can stay in the car though, nap if you want.”

“Thanks, I will.”

Frank rolls his eyes, laughs because no matter what happens with Martin, with this already ill fated job, he still has Chris, will always have Chris on his side, always be able to count on him. They’re partners and they’ll have each other’s backs and Frank knows that if there’s any way to make it out of this mess, he and Chris will do it. They’ve made it through a lifetime of things together, already, and they’ll get through a lifetime more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So things will start to pick up a little now that Laurel finally puts in her appearance in this chapter...  
> I know its a bit of a slow (absolutely crawling) burn, but it won't always be like that

He heads out soon after that, takes his rental car and treks across town to Jorge Castillo’s mansion, to his gated community.

He parks a few blocks away, tracks down the name, the basic information of the neighbor three doors down, gives it to the uniformed guard at the entrance to the neighborhood. Martin may treat him like a goon on his first job, but Frank is nothing if not meticulous, is going to do nothing that risks him getting caught, getting noticed.

He parks down the block from the house, far enough away no one’s going to notice him, thankful he’s in a neighborhood with legit mansions, where the neighbors are far away.

There’s not a separate guardhouse, thankfully, but there are cameras, and a fence with a gate and Frank has a sneaking suspicion that there are probably some hired guns inside doing private security because cameras and a gate are just too damn easy for a man who stole millions of dollars in security secrets from Mexico, who has pissed someone off enough they want to kidnap his daughter.

He’s far enough away no one is going to look to closely at him, but close enough he’ll be able to see anyone coming or going to the house. He sits outside for three hours, until the sun goes down and the streetlights come on and there’s not a shred of movement from inside.

It makes Frank nervous, because he knows there should be staff, a maid or two, maybe a cook and they should be leaving, now, as night falls. But they don’t. No one does. Until ten minutes after nine when a car swings down the street, flies into the driveway and, after a long moment, Laurel Castillo steps out, calling something out loudly to the driver before she shuts the door, heads into the house.

There are lights already on in the house, on the first floor mostly, but soon after she enters there’s flickering from the second floor windows as they burst with light.

He doesn’t trust that no one else is in the house, but without a way to prove it he knows he must report back to Martin, leave the call up to him. If there’s no one else in the house save the girl, taking her will be easy, or relatively at least, just a matter of bypassing the security system. And if they can figure out the camera brands, the particular alarm system in use, well, Frank knows they can figure out the tricks, the blind spots, figure out what they need to do to get in and get out unnoticed.

But if there is, if there are other people inside, well, that makes it more complicated. Because an alarm system can’t shoot back. As long as they’re in and out quickly enough, an alarm system isn’t much of a deterrent.

He tells himself he won’t say anything tonight, make no mention of his observations at the mansion until he has a chance to see what he can scope out tomorrow when he hopes, prays Laurel will go running, will use the trail she posted from, once, months ago.

He watches the house a while longer, watches as lights go on, go off within the house, in a pattern he thinks signals only one person within, thinks it must mean Laurel is alone, but can’t quite trust his own senses.

He half considers texting Chris, asking him to dig around in Jorge’s payroll files, see if he is employing any staff, what their hours are, or should be. He himself searches for news articles on the man, seeing if he can find any information on whether Jorge’s in town, in Miami or off somewhere else.

He finds something from a business journal about a merger between Jorge’s tech company and one out of Alabama that makes some kind of parts for satellites, spy planes, something. Merger scheduled to take place tomorrow, so yeah, maybe Castillo’s out of town finalizing the deal. There’s no word of whether his wife, the step mom accompanied him, but it certainly looks like the house is vacant apart from Laurel.

He packs it in soon after that, knows he’s not going to get anymore useful information. He half thinks about going back to the safe house, but can’t stand the thought of having to interact with Martin, answer his questions.

Instead, he drives around, tries to find a good spot to park to nearest to the trail where Laurel had gone running, where he hopes she still goes running. He knows he won’t be able to scope out the trail in the dark, but wants to find the best place to park, stash the car where they won’t be seen, where they can get the package to the car without trouble.

His GPS suggests a couple of little pulloffs along the coast where he can stash the car, a couple of places that will get him close to the water, close to the trail where he figures fishermen probably park for early morning angling. He’ll let Chris pretend to be a fisherman, keep watch on the trail, and he’ll fake it as a runner, catch up to her, tase her or drug her or just hit her over the damn head if she shows on the trail.

He wonders if Chris remembered to buy a Taser, thinks anything they do will be about a hundred times harder if he needs to stick a needle in Laurel Castillo’s neck, rather than shock her from a ten feet out.

He hopes too, the trail is deserted, that they won’t run across other runners who are going to wonder what the hell they’re doing shocking, drugging a girl and bundling her into the trunk of a car. He thinks the trail will be pretty deserted, apart from those fisherman, because it doesn’t seem to go much of anywhere, just up and along the coast; aside from the fact that it starts about a mile from her house, runs a couple of miles up the coast, meandering first closer and then farther from the shore, he’s not sure why anyone’d use it, seek it out if it wasn’t already practically in their backyard.

He goes and grabs some burgers, just to avoid going back to the house for a little longer, figures he can rack up a few points with Martin if he brings back food. He doesn’t of course, because when he arrives with the bags of grease and salt Martin is nowhere to be found, Chris barely glancing up from the basketball game he has on to grab the burger Frank tosses him.

“Boss man?” Frank asks, tearing into his own burger.

Chris shrugs. “He went off to see if he could break into the school.”

Frank gives the other man a sharp look. “Wait, what?”

He gives Frank another shrug. “Dunno man. That’s what he told me. He thinks the house is a non-starter, doesn’t think your lead about the trail will pan out. So, gotta use the school I guess.”

He shakes his head. “Trail’s gonna pan out, Chris, you know it and I know it.”

Chris chuckles slowly, gives a slow roll of his eyes as he leans back against the couch cushions. “I don’t know shit Frank. Not unless Martin tells me.”

“My instincts here are good,” he says, scowling, because Chris is his partner, trusts him or he should and he knows, his lead is good, knows that if they can figure out where Laurel runs, they’ll have her and he can’t figure out why everyone doubts him.

“We find her route, we have her and we don’t have to worry about cameras or witnesses, none of this shit.”

Chris frowns around his burger, takes another bite and chews slowly before he speaks. “I know Frankie, I do. But you gotta do what Martin says, he’s in charge here and he knows best. Ok?”

Frank nods, tries not to scowl, grimace, let his dislike show on his face. “I know, man,” he sighs.

“Gotta trust him, ok Frankie,” Chris tells him, reaching out and muting the TV so he can stare Frank down. “He’s not trying to screw us over, he’s trying to make this damn op work.”

“For who though?” he asks, lips twisting.

“For the people paying us,” Chris snaps. “What the hell’s gotten into you, Frank? This is a fucking job, not a goddamn milk run.”

“This is a shit job and we’re getting fucked,” he hisses. “Everything about this job is bullshit and no one’s telling us anything about what’s going on. Martin’s got his own agenda, I know he does. Because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be scouting out the fucking school.”

Chris rolls his eyes, throws up his hands in frustration. “Just cause he’s not listening to you doesn’t mean he’s got some hidden agenda, he’s exploring all the angles Frankie ok, so turn the paranoia down a few clicks.”

“I hate kidnappings.”

Chris nods. “I know man, and I know that’s why you’re getting so jumpy. But if you don’t chill out, you’re gonna be the one to fuck up this job, to get us caught.”

“I’m not gonna get caught,” Frank assures him. “I wouldn’t do that, because if I get caught, even if I do everything perfectly, even if I cover my tracks, its gonna put you at risk. I’m not gonna do that.”

“So trust that Martin won’t either,” he’s urged.

Frank nods, glares down at his burger because its clear he’s not going to be able to convince Chris, not tonight, not with only a hunch to go on. And he’s not up for fraying things between them much more, not while they’re both on edge about this stupid job. “Ok man,” he nods, dropping down into the chair next to Chris’s spot on the couch. “So who’s playing?”

The other man grins, unmutes the TV. “Heat and Knicks. It’s a shit game.”

* * *

He wakes early the next day, just after 4:00, rouses Chris with threats and promises and, eventually, by name dropping that Martin’d be pissed if the other man stayed asleep since he specifically told Frank to take him.

Chris barely throws clothes on before they’re in the car, Frank stopping first at a gas station for coffee, large, black, for both of them, and second at a 24 hour big box store for a fishing pole and tackle box and a little floppy hat for Chris. He half considers buying himself some nicer shorts, because cut off sweats are not really suitable for running in Florida, decides against it. He’s not really planning on running much anyway.

They park off to the side of the road closest to the beach, the trail, angle the car so their license plate can’t be seen and head off to the trail. Frank scouted the trail the night before on his phone, sends Chris in one direction, closer to the house, the start of the trail, to a little bit of boardwalk overlooking a tidal inlet where he’ll have to see Laurel if she passes.

“Text if you see something,” Frank calls out as he heads in the other, towards the overlook where Laurel once posted. He heads about 100 yards down the trail, considers doing something like stretching, making himself look legit, doesn’t bother because he’s fairly certain the trail is rarely used, that no one’s going to come past him until Laurel Castillo, if she even shows.

Its only just after 5:00, the sun beginning to rise over the water. It’s pretty, he thinks, the sun going pink, orange over the water, setting it glowing and sparkling, understands maybe why Laurel would run this trail, run along the shore as she watches the sun climb, silent, solitary, with nothing but the gulls and the wind and the crashing surf. He’s been out two years now, two years four months and seventeen days to be exact, and he still hasn’t tired of seeing the sunrise, isn't sure he ever will. He spent ten years barely seeing the sun, just for a couple hours every week, but since he’s been out, well, he finds himself seeking it out every few weeks, finds himself sleepless until the dawn, until he can see the sky slowly turn from black to navy, indigo, until the stars fade and the sky streaks with pink, red, orange, until it chases the night away and Frank’s heart stills, settles, until peace finds him again.

Frank finds a tree just off the trail, one with a thick enough trunk to support him, drops to the ground and leans back against it, lets the last lingering moments of darkness wrap around him while he waits.

He tries to keep from falling asleep, but the warm breeze against his face, the slow crash of the waves against the shore sets his eyes slipping closed, his breathing steady.

He’s not sure how much time passes but he knows no one else uses the trail until the buzz of his phone against his thigh wakes him up again.

He slides it open, sees the text from Chris warning him that someone’s coming, a girl, young and probably the target. He gets to his feet quickly, blinking away the lingering sleep from his eyes, from his brain, sets off at a jog towards where he left Chris.

Its only a minute or two before he spots her, running hard down the trail, arms tight at her sides and her legs striding through the dirt. She’s breathing hard, sweat glistening on her forehead, her neck, but her pace is steady and assured, measured. She doesn’t startle when he comes into view, just gives him a glance that lingers almost a second too long, like she’s unsure of his presence, unused to having any company on the trail, wary almost, cautious. But she gives him a small smile, thin lipped but genuine, he thinks, as she passes, breath steady and deep and even. He catches her lingering glance too, assessing, catches the interest in her blue grey eyes. He smiles back too, smirking and slanted as he passes, can’t help himself, never could.

He turns once he hears the sound of her footfalls recede, turns and watches her go, pace clipped and steady still, practiced.

He thinks he could outsprint her, but not for very long, but turns that thought away, simply admires the lines of her body, long and sharp, admires the play of muscles across her back, her shoulders.

He keeps up his jog until he reaches Chris already hiking back towards the car.

“So?” he asks when he gets close enough. “Was my lead right or what?”

Chris grins widely, almost triumphant. “Looks like it was. You think she runs everyday?”

“Must,” he answers with a shrug. “She’s on the track team or something.”

Chris hums. “Wasn’t wearing headphones, was she?”

“Nah,” Frank says. “No big deal though, I can run her down, knock her out with the Taser. Even if she hears me, well, can’t outrun 50,000 volts.”

Chris laughs, rolls his eyes. “True, can’t outrun a taser.”

“And if she doesn’t have headphones, chances are she doesn’t have her phone with her,” Frank adds. “So ain't no one gonna be able to track us, figure out her last location.”

“They ping her phone, they’ll just find it sitting at home,” Chris grins. “And we’re home free.”

“Exactly,” he nods, sobers. “So, you gonna back me with Martin?”

“What do you mean?” Chris asks him, eyes narrowing and his grin slipping off his face.

“Back my plan,” he explains. “Back me. If there’s a question about where we grab the package, you tell Martin this is the best way.”

The other man scowls. “If I still think its the best plan, yeah, I’ll back you. If someone gives me something better, well…”

“Well then I’m shit outta luck huh,” Frank finishes for him giving him a wry grin.

“Sorry man,” he shrugs.

“Nah,” Frank laughs. “Just want you to back the best plan here, keep us all fat and sassy.”

“And rich,” Chris adds.

“Course,” Frank agrees. “Rich too.”

 

* * *

 

And twenty four hours later, Frank finds himself standing in the same spot, wearing the same clothes, Taser clutched in his fist, because Martin was forced to recognize that the school was a dead end, and the house too, that the only safe way to grab Laurel was if they did it somewhere isolated, somewhere they wouldn’t be seen.

He just hopes she’s running today, or running on this trail, or running in the morning instead of the afternoon. He just hopes his hunch is right, doesn’t blow up in his face because, while Martin agreed with him, he wasn’t enthusiastic, hadn’t seemed terribly confident that Frank would be able to pull things off. He knows Martin’s been making contingency plans with Chris for the afternoon, trying for one last, desperate, play if things don’t pan out with Frank’s plan and that rankles him, makes him want to succeed with a determination he’s not sure he’d otherwise have because well, he’s reluctant about this job anyway. He half wonders if that wasn’t Martin’s intention in the first place, but rejects it, thinks that the other man’s dislike of him runs so deep, already, that its just that he doesn’t think Frank’s worth a damn, knows enough about Laurel’s patterns, her habits to know where she will be.

Martin’s set up a few hundred yards north of him, Chris a few hundred yards south, both of the men pretending to fish in the early morning surf. And Frank, Frank has his phone in one hand, Taser in another, ready to take a sixteen year old girl down, knock her out with 50,000 volts and tie her up and stash her in a basement until someone pays him millions for her return.

Again, the sun is just beginning to rise over the water, setting the beach glowing with light, the temperature already rising, muggy and thick. Frank thinks it would be nice if he were actually trying to run, wasn’t just sitting along this trail, waiting.

He gets a text then, from Chris, another heads up, the target approaching. He sighs, runs a hand across his beard and sets off at a jog down the beach towards Chris, towards Laurel Castillo.

He turns a corner in the trail and there she is, dark hair plastered to her face, sweat slicking over her body, her tank clinging to her sharp curves. It catches him off guard, her appearance so unexpected he almost forgets what he’s doing, the purpose of his presence on the trail.

And then he shakes off the fog, clutches the Taser tighter in his fist and waits. Her pace, again, is quick and steady and again, she flashes him a small, quick smile as her eyes light on him, looking surprised, pleased to see him again, recognition in her glance. His stomach sinks, because he’s going to ruin that, ruin that trust, that smile, guileless and true, he’s going to shatter that in her.

Because once she’s close enough, close enough to touch, practically past him, Frank fires the Taser. She starts to turn back around at the sound of the shot, the little clicking noises the weapon gives off, almost like a cackle, gets her neck halfway around on a swivel before the prongs get her in the back, the side and she does down, instantly, like her legs have been taken from under her, no longer able to support an ounce of her weight.

He expects a groan or a cry, something, but she goes down noiselessly, hard, arms not able to break her fall. He has to be quick though, he knows, has to be quick in subduing her, securing her, before the last aftershocks of from the Taser fade and she can move again, because it takes thirty seconds to be able to shock her again, even if he thought he could get her twice.  
Her legs are twitching in the sand, reflexively, hands balled tight into fists and her muscles taught, stiff and straining. Frank approaches, fishes a ziptie from his pocket, grabs her wrist.

And then he finds himself on the ground, somehow, he’s not sure exactly, pain flashing behind his eyes, radiating out from a spot in the center of his forehead, the world gone hazy at the edges like he’s underwater.

And the girl, the target, halfway to her feet, legs still unsteady, collapsing under her weight, hands scrabbling against the sand as she tries to force herself upright.

She headbutted him, he thinks belatedly, fucking head butted him and now she’s trying to run away and goddamnit he hates kidnappings because something like this, like getting headbutted by a goddamn sixteen year old girl, something like this always happens.

Frank stands, sways, but fights off the dizzying pain, has to break into a run because the girl is back to her feet and surging down the beach, pace faltering and limping but picking up speed. He chases her down, maybe only a few dozen feet though it feels like miles, lowers his head and spreads his arms and wraps her up in a tackle, taking them both back down to the sandy ground.

She struggles, of course she does, turns in his arms and lashes out at him again, all knees and elbows and flashing, spitting anger. He’s heavier than her, by enough that its easy enough to catch her weight underneath his, hips and knees trapping her beneath his greater size, knees against her hips pressing her painfully against the sand even as she struggles against him. He manages to catch her wrist as she goes to strike him again, notices, finally, the rock she clutches tightly in her palm.

“Drop it,” he growls, fingers tightening around her wrist until he knows she’ll bruise, know she’s in pain, her face contorted into a grimace, a snarl.

“Fuck you,” she spits, knee coming up and catching him in the nuts, pain and nausea splitting him in half.

He hangs on though, hangs onto her wrist, uses his other hand to force her fingers open, force the rock from her grasp. Its only then her eyes go fearful, wide and darting, only then he sees some of the snarling, vicious anger leave her, practically drain from her body, like she realizes she’s losing, realizes she’s lost and there’s nothing she can do to change the outcome.

She still struggles though, still fights, teeth bared and her body twisting and pulling and resisting, with every atom inside her, Frank can tell she’s resisting. But there’s that fear in her eyes, the whites swallowing nearly everything else, that fear he can see below the anger, below the rage, lurking just below the surface and he knows he’s won. Because she knows she’s lost.

Even so, she screams then, loud and high and piercing, inhales sharply and lets out all the breath left in her lungs. Frank’s hand instantly seals against her mouth, her nose, stopping the breath from her lungs, stopping the sound of her cry.

“It’s not gonna work that way,” he tells her. “So you better just…”

And then its his turn to cry out because she sinks her teeth into his palm, against the soft skin and clamps her jaw tight and Frank can feel his flesh tear, feel the blood start to pour from his hand, hot and slick and slippery.

He can tell she wants to release, that she’s practically choking on his blood now, wants to retch at the slide of it down her throat. But she doesn’t, she just barrels on past that impulse, fury and determination and ice in her glance, jaw set tight as she tries tearing further at his skin.

He has to release his seal against her airways, can’t let her keep her hold on his hand, but Frank reaches out, gasps the rock he took from her grasp, holds it up near his head so she can see it.

“Fuck you,” she tells him again, voice breathless before she spits a mouthful of blood at him. “You either let me go or you kill me.”

“No,” he tells her, flinching back at the spray of blood that splatters across his face. “I don’t think I will.”

“Then I’m gonna kill you,” she snarls. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

He smiles, wide and cocky, letting her see his confidence, letting her see that he’s won, that she’s no longer any threat to him. The girl almost startles at that, and he can feel the sudden fear that rushes through her bones, feel the sudden tension in her limbs. “No you’re not,” he tells her, showing her the rock again, moving it across her line of sight. “And this, this is on you now.”

He brings the rock down, hard, against her temple, flinching at the sickening crunch he hears as it connects. She goes limp, instantly, limbs falling slack against the sand. Frank remains with his knees pressed tight against her sides, hips bracketing hers for long moments, until he’s sure she’s unconscious, sure she’s not going to try some new trick against him. Its only then he grabs another zip tie, ratchets it tight around her wrist, a second against her other hand and a third connecting the two, securing her, disarming her.

He’s just finishing up when Martin comes into view, strolling casually along the trail.

His pace falters, just slightly when he sees Frank, eyes narrowing dangerously, flashing with something cruel, something dark and sharp.

“You planning on raping her Frank?” he calls, voice far too casual, laced through with ice.

“Fuck no,” Frank answers, finding it somewhere in himself not to lash out at the other man, not to clip him across the temple with a rock, not to launch himself at the other man, fists flying, to somehow swallow back the rage that flashes, churning in his gut at the question, at even the implication that he would do something like that to this girl, this child that he’s been tasked with ruining, but not like that, never like that. He clambers to his feet, head still pounding, his dick and his balls still hammering with pain, fixes Martin with a long, withering glare, hands balled into fists. The other man holds his stare, gaze unflinching, for long moments, like they’re at war, two armies gazing out at each other in the last, still moments before the churning chaos of battle begins, like he’s waiting for Frank to back down, submit. He doesn’t, he can’t, he won’t, not on this at least. Because he’s stubborn and he’s angry and he just had to clock a sixteen year old girl with a rock to keep her from tearing through his hand. “But she didn’t go down easy. Had to knock her out.”

Martin’s gaze breaks away from Frank’s then, and he hazards a glance down at Laurel, sprawled against the sand, bored and disinterested. “She alive?”

Frank takes a deep, shaking breath. “Think so.”

The other man takes a dozen steps towards them then, mouth twisting into something ugly, cruel, his eyes reminding Frank of a man looking at something unpleasant staining the bottom of his shoe. He half expects Martin to nudge the girl with the toe of his shoe, check that she really is alive.

Finally he shrugs, looks back up at Frank. “She’s breathing at least,” he says, giving Frank a quizzical look. “She did a number on you didn’t she?”

“Told you,” Frank repeats, voice edged. “She didn’t go down easy.”

“But she did go down,” Martin says, glancing down at the sprawled body again. “Good work Frank.”

He just grunts, swipes his uninjured hand across his face, trying to get some of the blood from his eyes, failing. He presses his injured hand against his chest, tries to stop some of the bleeding by pressing the wound against his shirt. “Where’s Chris?”

“Getting the car ready,” Martin says, taking another slow step towards Laurel’s prone body, stooping over slightly to regard her thoughtfully. “She’s bleeding.”

“So’m I,” Frank points out, smoothing the edges from his voice.

“We can’t leave any trail Frank,” he tells him. “You know that. Nothing that can lead to us, nothing that can tie us to this.”

Frank sighs, pulls off his wife beater and drops into a crouch before Laurel’s prone body. He turns her slightly, finds the trickle of blood staining the side of her face now, dripping across her jawline, presses his shirt to her temple. He swipes at the trail of blood, regards the wound thoughtfully, waits for more blood to bubble up from the little jagged cut just above her left eyebrow.

“It’s mostly stopped,” he announces, pulling his shirt away, wrapping the cleanest part around his own, still weeping hand, hissing at the pain of it. He kicks idly at the bloodstained sand, churning the grains until he can no longer see red, until the blood is mixed in with the ground itself, undetectable. “We should be fine.”

“Should’s not good enough Frank,” Martin reminds him. “Should gets us caught.”

“I know,” he growls, glares at Martin because his head fucking hurts and his balls fucking hurt and he fucking hates kidnappings. “We got some sheeting in the trunk already. We’ll just burn everything once we’re at the house.”

Martin nods, squares his spine and heads off down the trail. Frank sighs, drops into a crouch and slings Laurel’s limp body over his shoulder, hand against the back of her knees securing her. Her dark hair hangs loose and long against his back, brushing against his calves, tickling his skin. “I’m sorry,” he tells her softly, knowing she can’t hear, knowing it wouldn’t matter even if she did. “I didn’t want it to be like this.”

She doesn’t answer of course, and he can’t imagine what she’d say if she did. Frank thought it would make him feel better, to voice it, the apology, the confession that he knows what he’s doing, knows the terrible things he will continue to do to her. It doesn’t, because he’s still hurting her, its only just started.

Chris’s already popped the trunk when he approaches, face tight with tension.

“Hurry up,” he hisses when Frank draws near. “Jesus, Frank, c’mon.”

Frank just glares. “You wanna carry her?”

“Hell no,” he answers, smirking. “This is all you buddy.”

Frank practically growls as he dumps her limp body into the trunk, feet first, wedges her knees up by her chest so he can fit her torso, head into the trunk, curled small and tight like the child she is, looking small and still and soft, like she’s asleep.

“Lets get outta here,” he growls, shutting the trunk with a wince, pain shooting through his hand, his head. “If she wakes up before we get her in the house.”

The other man laughs, shakes his head ruefully. “You look like she took you for a few rounds.”

Frank nods, scrubs a hand across his face again, tired and sick and hurt. “She wakes up, you’re handling her. Let you get clocked in the nuts.”

Chris’s laugh is a sharp bark this time, his glance towards the closed trunk impressed. “Little thing has spunk.”

“She probably thought I was gonna rape her, kill her,” Frank mutters, summoning the ghost of Martin’s words. “Can’t really blame her.”

“No,” Chris agrees, hand running through his hair. “Especially cause she wasn’t far off. You weren’t gonna kill her, but you certainly weren’t asking for directions either.”

“No,” he echoes, going around to the side of the car, slipping into the backseat as Chris takes shotgun. “I certainly wasn’t doing that.”

He leans his head back against the cushioned headrest, lets his eyes fall closed and tries to forget about the hogtied girl lying inches away in the trunk, the pounding across his palm.

Martin starts the engine, pulls out slowly down the narrow gravel road. Frank cracks an eye, finds Chris turned around in his seat, fixing Frank with a long, teasing grin, teeth flashing. “You think she gave you rabies?” he asks.

“Jesus,” Frank groans. “Don’t even joke about that. You know I can’t get this shit treated.”

“Just gonna have to put you down like Old Yeller then,” Chris tells him, cocking his fingers into a gun and pretending to pull the trigger. “One right between the eyes. Bury you in the backyard.”

“Here lies Frank,” he groans. “Killed by a pissed off child.”

“Killed by a girl who thought you were going to rape her,” Martin cuts in from the driver’s seat as he turns onto the main road.

“Jesus,” Frank mutters, hand passing across his face. “The fuck does everyone keep thinking I’m gonna rape her?  I'm not gonna fucking touch her.”

“Because that’s what women expect men to do,” Martin tells him casually, like the answer should have been obvious to Frank. “Come up behind them when they’re running and rape them and kill them. She’s lucky you’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“She's lucky I like getting paid more than I like getting my rocks off,” he corrects, tries to joke but he knows it falls flat because he can’t summon the levity, the proper casualness to make it work.  There's nothing funny about it, nothing funny about the assumption that he's going to rape the girl, kill her, the idea that he'd want to, nothing funny about joking that Frank's the kind of man who would do something like that, like its not a terrible, pathetic thing to joke about, like it wouldn't be adding something horrible, something irredeemable to a crime that is already horrible, already irredeemable, already bound to ruin this strange, small girl, already violated her in a way Frank knows there's no coming back from.  He's already hurt her so much already, in the five short minutes since he saw her coming down the trail and the idea of hurting her more, doing more damage, more trauma to this girl who's never hurt him, who doesn't deserve any of the things coming to her makes guilt, makes sorrow and loathing and horror churn in his gut, makes him nauseous with it, makes him want to turn around and tell Chris and Martin to stop the car, tell them to screw it, screw themselves, back out of this job and flee back to Philly so he doesn't hurt her more than he already has, deeply and unforgivably.  

But he doesn't, of course he doesn't, because Frank's a coward, in all the places, in all the moments that really count he's nothing more than a sad, pathetic coward, content to do what's easy, what gets him paid, do what Chris and his bosses tell him to do, pretend he has no agency, no choice, pretend like he's a cog in the machine.  So instead of stopping the car, walking away, walking away from this crime, he just sighs, scrubs a hand across his beard and tells himself not to think about the girl tied up, knocked out and stuffed in the trunk of the car, tries not to think about all the terrible things yet to come, the terrible things he has yet to do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a long one. Dunno whether that's good or bad, but couldn't find a spot to finish it up that wouldn't throw off the length of literally every other chapter. So here we are...  
> Is this chapter, Laurel continues to be a tiny badass and also lectures Frank about feminism for a hot minute  
> Also, somewhat canon typical violence in this guy...

Thankfully she’s still out when they get back to the house, body limp and fragile. They pull into the garage, have a bitch of a time trying to wedge her body out between the trunk and the garage door, the space not quite big enough.

If Frank’s head wasn’t still pounding in pain he’d laugh about it, because their problem’d be solved if they just opened the garage door, gave themselves half a foot of extra room. But they can’t do that of course, one of the fundamentals of kidnapping being that you can’t get spotted carrying the goods.

So the three of them struggle until eventually Frank stands on the bumper, braces himself against the garage door and maneuvers her body enough that the others can pull her over the side of the trunk.

Chris carries her this time, down to the soundproof basement, where they slump Laurel Castillo upright in a chair, Frank’s hands against her shoulders keeping her upright while Chris, zipties her hands through the wooden railings, gets her ankles too for good measure, held tightly against the chair legs. The minute she’s secure and Frank relaxes his grip against her shoulders, Laurel’s body slumps forward, boneless, shoulders pulling taut as the zipties act as a counterweight, bracing her against the chair.

She looks, Frank thinks, small and shattered, already. She looks like a child, like she’s already dead. He finds himself wanting to cry, though he couldn’t say why, wanting to tell her he’s sorry, that everything will be ok. It’s a lie, of course, but he wants to tell her anyway, hopes she’d believe him.

“Well,” Chris asks then, sighing as he adjust the tie around her wrist a final time. “You think we should gag her?”

“Dunno,” Frank shrugs. “Soundproofing should keep the noise down if she screams. We can always use it as a threat, no one likes getting duct tape ripped off.”

The other man chuckles, his arms crossed over his chest as he stares down at the girl. “You think she’s a screamer?”

“No,” Frank growls, shooting the other man a glare at the implications in his words. She’s a fucking child, Frank thinks, much as they’re all trying not to think it, can’t think it because that will make what they’re doing worse. They can’t think it because of what it will make them, but still, still, that’s what she is, a child, barely sixteen and innocent enough that a kidnapping is going to consume her, burn her up until he’s not entirely sure what will be left, but it won’t be anything soft, anything innocent, won’t be that quick slanted smile, unguarded and lovely. No, they can’t think of her as a child, but they can’t think of her like this either. “I doubt it.”

Chris’s smile goes wicked, sharp. “We could always try and find out.”

Frank crosses his arms over his chest before he can help himself, glares at Chris. “We’re all getting outta here in one piece Chris, us an’ her. We’re just babysitters for a few days, no funny business.”

Chris scowls, looks like he’s going to argue but stays silent, eventually grins, slow and easy. “This is like some shitty movie man, three men and a kidnapping.”

“Three men and a week long babysitting gig,” Frank corrects. “That’s all this shit is.”

“Here’s hoping,” the other man shrugs.

They both turn then, stare at the unconscious girl for a long, long moment, her long, dark hair hanging like a curtain, a shield across her face, hanging practically to her thighs.

Chris goes around the basement, double checking that there’s nothing that the girl could use as a weapon, nothing she could use to free herself, while Frank retreats back upstairs, removes the shirt from around his bitten hand, blood dried and sticky and cracked now, replaces the fabric with a thin line of gauze around his palm after cleaning out the wound, smearing it with a generous dab of Neosporin. The side of his hand is red and puffy, bruising where her teeth sunk in, but not the scarlet, flaming swell of an infection well on its way and Frank offers up a little, tentative prayer that it doesn’t get worse, doesn’t get infected. It itches already, which he thinks is a good thing, means its healing rather than festering. Once its bandaged, he retreats back downstairs, unwilling to leave Chris to watch the girl without establishing a game plan, without figuring out how they proceed.

“You want first watch or me?” Frank asks once he’s made it back to the basement, finds Chris standing over the girl, his arms crossed and a scowl fixed to his face, already annoyed, already chafing at the long, boring watches required of them. Chris is his brother, his mentor, his partner, but Frank can admit the other man has never been very patient, never very good at the long, endless hours of waiting that are often a part of crime, the calm before the storm. That’s always been the place where Frank excels, the spaces between breaths, but not Chris, no, he thrives on the chaos, on the action, on the split second decisions when the plan goes awry. This, this waiting is second nature to Frank, but not to Chris and he’s already growing bored, restless, already looking for something new, exciting, itching for some action.

“How’re we splitting it up anyway?” Chris asks and Frank realizes they haven’t even discussed how they’re going to divvy up watching her, making sure she doesn’t do anything stupid like try to escape. Frank knows its not necessary, not required that they have eyes on her at all times, because there’s only one way out of the basement, and there’s a damn good lock on the door, but its always been their practice, always been the way they ensure they get through and out the other side. Eyes mean they can immediately react, immediately prevent disaster, eyes mean that the girl will have less time to test her bonds, less time to think up a plan, a means of escape, will have less inclination to even try, to even consider it because Frank and Chris will be there, always present, always watching. If she thinks she can’t escape their eyes, their gaze, well, she’s that much less likely to try anything.

“Eight hour shifts?” Frank proposes with a shrug. “Twelve? Or we wanna keep her on her toes and mix it up a bit?”

“Nah,” Chris tells him. “Why do more work than you gotta. Twelve hours are fine.”

“Martin gonna help us out with watching her?” he asks, tries to keep his voice level and even, not let his dislike sound in his voice.

“Dunno,” the other man answers. “We’ll make it work though. Even if its only the two of us.”

“Yeah,” Frank agrees, though he’s not sure he really does, not sure he really believes they’re not going to be run ragged with twelve hour shifts spent watching the girl in silence. “You first or me then?”

“Play for it?” Chris asks, grinning wryly, hand already extended.

Frank rolls his eyes, holds out his hand as well. “Shoot,” he tells the other man.

They extend their hands, Chris holding his hand out flat, Frank making a fist. Paper beats scissors. 

The other man grins, smirks triumphantly. “See you in twelve hours then,” he laughs.  
Frank shrugs, would honestly rather be the one the girl sees when she wakes up, allow him the opportunity to explain, to apologize, even if it doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t really matter a damn. He knows it won’t matter to her, will mean less than nothing, because he can be as sorry as he wants, but she’s still been Tasered, still cracked over the head, stuffed in a trunk and tied to a chair. She’s still a good four, five days from getting to go home, go back to her life, her friends, her father. She’s still probably years away from being willing to run alone, from walking down the street without looking over her shoulder, without her muscles coiled and tight and wary, tension running like a wire through her body.

Frank still wants to though, still wants to be the person she sees when she wakes up, wants to take on that responsibility, that burden. He owes that to her, he thinks, owes it to her to be the person she sees, to stand there and face whatever anger, fear, confusion she has, to be the one to explain what’s happened, why she has been taken, tied up, what she can expect going forward.

“See ya,” he tells Chris, settles in to wait. He considers taking the other chair, but decides against it. More than an hour in the stiff kitchen chair will set his spine aching, his muscles coiling into knots. Instead he settles flat against the concrete floor, stairs up at the ceiling, half considers yelling up to Chris to grab his book from his bag because more than an hour doing nothing in silence is probably going to drive him mad.

He falls asleep, not for very long, but falls asleep all the same. He wakes hearing the shift of movement, the creak of the wooden chair, the scrape of it against the concrete.

Frank opens his eyes, turns his head to watch the girl, watches her wake, come back to herself, back to consciousness. She barely moves, like she’s afraid to do so before she knows where she is, what’s happened, as though she doesn’t want to alert anyone who might be watching that she’s awake. Frank can tell though, can tell by the change in her breathing, no longer slow and even but faster now, stuttering. Not quick, not panicked like he’d expect, but faster, shallower.

He remains still, continues to watch her, her eyes tightly shut and her hair still hanging across her face. He can tell, by watching her, watching the lines of her body, watching the absolute stillness with which she holds herself, that she’s using every last atom of her body to listen, to focus on the things beyond herself, to gain as much information about where she is, what has happened to her before she does anything that would give away that she’s awake, aware, allow anyone to learn anything about her in turn. She’s trying to gain any advantage she can, any small kernel of information that can be used to position her to escape wherever she’s found herself, escape whatever terrible place she’s been taken, to beg or bargain or fight her way out of wherever she’s found herself.

He knows her head will be pounding, knows her shoulders will be screaming in pain from being pinned behind her back from supporting most of her weight, her legs stiff and falling asleep but still, Laurel Castillo doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound. He knows exactly how much effort it takes her not to lean back against the chair, knows how tempting it is to ease the burn in her shoulders, how much grim, iron determination is required to keep herself leaning forward, to keep from moving, giving anything away. 

He’s half impressed, doesn’t think he'd be able to keep silent, keep his eyes shut tight, too terrified and confused and hurt to think beyond getting answers, knowing what’s happened, what’s lead to this point. He thinks perhaps they’ve underestimated the girl, completely, assumed things about her based on her age, her size, her gender, made judgements about how she will deal with being kidnapped; with tears and fear and submission. He’s not so sure anymore, certainly not after she attacked him so fiercely, fought him so completely with everything inside her, and now, when she’s woken up somewhere she doesn’t know, confused and hurt, and she still has the strength to control herself, her reactions, still has the iron will to keep herself still and focus fully on gaining knowledge, gaining an advantage, a way out instead of doing what’s easy, what’s instinctive and easing her pain, opening her eyes or speaking in order to gain information.

But well, she didn’t anticipate that Frank would be watching her, didn’t anticipate that he would be doing the same thing, watching and judging and trying to gain whatever knowledge he can about her, about how she will react to the strange situation she finds herself in, kidnapped and tied up and knocked out. He’s watching her, watching her every move, every breath, same as she’s trying to gain whatever knowledge she can about where she is, about who has taken her through every sense but sight.

He keeps himself still against the concrete, unmoving, watching her, watching the barely detectible movements of her body, the flaring of her nostrils, the way she tests the bonds on her wrists, her ankles without really moving, just a subtle shift of muscles against the zip ties, so small, so slow as to barely happen. Had Frank not been watching, he doubts he would have noticed at all because she moves, when she moves at all, at a snails crawl, moving only an inch, a half inch at a time and only on part of her body, a wrist or the slow turn of her head.

He lets her go on like that for far longer than he should before he speaks. “I know you’re awake,” he tells her, voice ringing through the silence of the basement like a shot.

She freezes, even more than she’s already been frozen, goes so still he doesn’t think she even breathes. She doesn’t move, doesn’t look up, doesn’t open her eyes or gasp in shock, just goes motionless, though he can see after a long moment, the tremble in her skin, like a cornered rabbit, heart pounding so fast, so hard that it shakes her entire body, shakes her very soul.

“I know you’re awake,” he says again when she makes no move to acknowledge his words, continues to pretend she’s still unconscious. “So quit pretending you’re not, yeah?”

He watches Laurel sink her teeth into her lower lip, sees her hands slip into fists behind her before she looks up. She still doesn’t lean back, and now Frank wonders if she even has the strength to, just raises her chin defiantly and meets his eyes, jaw tight and sharp, eyes bladed. Her hair still hangs across her face, a dark cascade of tangled strands, throwing shadows over her face. He thinks at first the smudges under her eyes, the hollow darkness surrounding her piercing eyes are shadows thrown by her hair before he realizes his mistake, that no, they’re bruises thrown across her eyes, dark patches of discolored skin above her cheekbones and not shadows at all. Its then he notices the slight swelling to her nose, not as bad as he’d expect, not anything he’d noticed before, but, all the same, a swelling to her nose that explains the dusting of black under her eyes. She must’ve cracked her nose when she fell, Frank thinks, the Taser rendering her unable to break her fall.

She glares at him as she raises her chin, blue eyes dark, cloudy with rage. She bares her teeth, like a cornered animal and inside is a red ruin, mouth streaked with blood, his blood, savage and sharp.

“Fuck you,” she tells him, practically spitting the words and Frank thinks that she’s said all of maybe a dozen words to him thus far and half of them have been ‘fuck you.’ He’d laugh if he didn’t hate it so much, didn’t hate what he’s done to this child, to Laurel, didn’t hate that he’s reduced this girl to rage and fear, to bloody smiles and frozen hands.

Frank can feel himself getting angry, at himself most of all, but at her too, and Martin and maybe her father, maybe the entire world, but just crosses his arms over his chest, gives her a cocky, slanted smirk, knows it will enrage her, will taunt her. He hates doing it, but he has to keep the upper hand in this, always. Kidnappings only work if you stay disengaged and he’s been around too long not to know that Stockholm Syndrome can work both ways. “Don’t think your old man’d be too pleased if I sent back damaged goods, so I’m gonna have to decline princess.”

He can tell the effect his words have on her the instant he speaks because she pitches forward in her chair like she wants to go after him, wants to tear at him like she did along the trail. She doesn’t struggle against her bonds, doesn’t fight them, but she pitches forward what little she can, glares at him as her mouth curls further into a snarl, teeth bared. “Fuck you and your bullshit patriarchal ideas about female sexuality.”

Frank laughs, can’t help himself, because that was not the reaction he was anticipating, her words just about the exact opposite of what he’d been bracing for, and his sharp bark of laughter echoes through the basement. 

If anything Laurel looks more furious, angrier now more than ever that he laughed at her words, laughed at her. “Easy there killer,” he tells her placatingly. “You do what I say and I’ll respect your third wave feminism all you want, alright?”

She looks startled for half a second, almost so quick Frank misses it, but her eyes widen and her jaw goes slack before the glare creeps back into her eyes. “I know what you’re doing,” she tells him, practically sneering the words, still pitched forward like she wishes she could lash out, strike at him. “Calling me ‘princess’ and ‘killer.’ My name’s Laurel, Laurel Castillo, but you know that already, don’t you? You just wish you didn’t, wish I could be some anonymous body to you.”

“I know your name,” Frank tells her, voice cold, pushing himself up into a sitting position, then getting to his feet. He stands, watches her, takes two steps towards her, slowly, testing the waters, testing Laurel, seeing how she reacts. She stiffens, raises her eyes to him, pupils wide, doing that thing again where she stops breathing, stops moving like he will overlook her if she doesn’t. She’s scared of him, Frank thinks, but trying to pretend she isn’t. Good, he decides, even as it makes his stomach sink, hating that she’s terrified of him, hating that he’s doing this to her, if she’s afraid she’ll comply, if she’s afraid she’ll make things easy. “I know your name, I just don’t care what it is. You’re not a body to me, you’re less than that. You're just cash.”

“I’m not cash,” she tells him, voice mirroring his own, cold and deadly. She grins then, bladed, her bloody teeth like fangs, ready to tear out his throat. “You’re a shit kidnapper if you don’t know that. I’m not cash to my dad, I’m not worth cash to my dad. You’ve picked the wrong rich girl to kidnap, cause you won’t be getting shit from him.”

Frank stalks another two steps forward, daring her, testing her. Still she doesn’t pitch backwards, doesn’t lean away from him, just continues to glare. “Your daddy issues are real cute, princess,” he tells her, emphasizing the word. “But I can guarantee you, he finds out we’ve got you, he’s gonna pay up right quick. Pretty little daddy’s girl like you?”

Now its Laurel’s turn to laugh, high and sharp and flashing. Finally, finally, she leans back in the chair, slowly, like it takes all her effort to do it, like she’s fighting against frozen muscles, the stinging ache in her flesh. She looks triumphant when she does, like she’s conquered something great, something fearsome, like she’s figured out Frank, unlocked the key to him, gotten the upper hand somehow in a battle Frank hadn’t even realized he’s lost, hadn’t even realized they were fighting. 

“This?” she asks with a little hitching shrug to her shoulders. “This misogynistic ownership thing, this weird sexual connotation to everything you’re saying? It’s gross and it’s cheap and it doesn’t fucking scare me. You don’t fucking scare me.”

“No?” he counters stepping forward, stepping into her space, watching as her eyes widen, her breath hitching as it increases in speed, the thrum of her pulse hammering hard in her neck. “Because your body says otherwise, your body says you’re terrified of me.”

She laughs again, sharp but too breathy, too quick, a ragged edge of panic undercutting the sound. “The hell do I have to be terrified of? I already know you’re gonna kill me.”

He scowls, because she’s gotten to exactly what he’d been fearing since this whole job started, that there’d be a hitch somehow, a catch that would blow the whole thing up, would fuck them over completely. And if Jorge Castillo doesn’t pay up, doesn’t pay to get his kid back, well that’ll fuck them over so totally he’s not sure what’ll happen. They can’t just let her go, that’d defeat the entire purpose of the kidnapping, but the whole point of a kidnapping is to get paid. And if they don’t, there’re only a few ways forward. And murder, torture are the most likely ways out, the most likely way to force a payout.

“I ain't gonna kill you,” he tells her, refusing to let any of that worry, any of that fear on his face, trying to school his expression into something angry, something menacing. “Not if I don’t have to. But I can make this a shitty couple of days for you.”

“Oh?” she asks, sarcastic, sneering at him again. “Getting Tased and knocked out? How’s that not shitty?”

“I can make it shittier for you,” he tells her with a casual shrug, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest. “You want me to Tase you again? You want me to forget to feed you? Leave you in the dark? I can make this as shitty as you want.”

“How bout you just let me go, huh?” she demands, pitching forward again, wincing as she does, at the pull in her shoulders, her wrists. “Save us all some damn trouble. Cause you, Mr. Piece of shit kidnapper, you didn’t do your damn homework and you’re damn sure not gonna get paid.”

“Kidnappings don’t really work like that,” he tells her, grin slanted.

“Kidnappings don’t really work if you don’t get paid either,” she counters. “So why don’t we cut this little adventure short. Let me go and I’ll lie, tell my dad I went down to Miami, forget everything about you.”

Frank scoffs. “You didn’t see shit about me.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, leaning back again, chin raised in defiance. “Try me asshole. You let me go now, I don’t know shit. But you keep me here, really go through with this, I’m gonna take you down.”

“That’s a lot of talk,” Frank tells her, eyebrows raised. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re staying right here till I get paid and you’re not gonna remember shit.”

Laurel snarls, her eyes flashing. “You have brown hair, light, long enough you don’t use clippers. Blue eyes. You come from somewhere in the northeast, New York, Jersey maybe, definitely not local. The way you speak implies you’re educated but probably not formally, so you either didn’t have money or were lazy in high school. Maybe didn’t even graduate at all. You have a scar on the inside of your wrist, left one. Its thin, old. You have a beard, a real one, not five o clock shadow. Square jaw. You’re probably just under six feet, probably just under 200 pounds, but not by much. How’s that?”

Frank’s stomach plummets, because somehow she’s managed to notice enough about him she’d be a problem if it came down to it, somehow memorized enough of his face in those few chaotic seconds before she went under to make his life uncomfortable, make Frank constantly glancing over his shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “You don’t know shit.”

She grins, wide and triumphant, says nothing, just leans back against the back of the chair again.

“None of that’s enough to get me pinched, even if you were right.”

“Which I’m not,” she finishes, still grinning because they both know the lie Frank’s trying to sell. “Of course.”

“You’re not,” he insists, though he realizes as soon as he speaks the mistake he’s making, being too forceful in his words, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as her.

She’s grinning again, ready to snap back at him when the door to the basement creaks open.

“Hey,” Frank hears Chris call down. “Package awake?”

He sees Laurel’s eyes widen, swinging towards the stairs, sees her body go stiff and taut, ready to fight, ready to flee.

“Yeah,” Frank calls casually, smirking at Laurel, because apparently an accomplice was not something she was expecting, not something she had anticipated, and he’s pleased he’s managed to catch her off guard, shake some of her confidence. “She’s up.”

“The package?” Laurel asks then, voice so low he has to strain to hear her, so full of malice he has a brief moment of gratitude that she's tied securely to the chair. “I’m not a fucking package, I’m a person.”

“You’re not,” he tells her as he hears the pounding of feet on the stairs. “You’re just cash to me. Him too.”

“No,” she snaps. “I’m a person. You don’t get to pretend I’m not.”

“I get to do whatever I want,” Frank tells her as Chris and then Martin appear at the bottom of the stairs. “And you don’t get to do shit.”

He says it low enough Martin doesn’t hear, doesn’t notice he and Laurel have probably exchanged more words than is really safe. Laurel notices, of course, Frank knows she does, watches her eyes swing between him and Martin, the way Frank steps back as Martin comes into view, shoves his hands deep into his pockets, knows she sees the way he defers, reluctantly, to the other man, the way he immediately clams up when Martin comes into view.

“Nice to see you up,” Martin tells her, though his voice is cold and and bored, practically a drawl. “I hope you’re not in too much pain.”

“Just fucking peachy,” Laurel replies, rolling her eyes. “Thanks.”

At her words, Martin moves forward, and before Frank can even understand what’s happened, before his slow brain can even catch up, Marin has one hand against Laurel’s shoulder, securing her in place, pushing her back against the chair so that his other hand can strike out, strike her stomach with a sick, heavy sound.

She gasps, goes to double over, collapse in on herself in pain, in fear, but the ties at her wrists, the hand against her shoulder keep her upright, blood draining out of her face until she’s left pale, bleached and hollow.

Frank finds himself making a noise, low in his throat, almost silent, almost a growl, stepping forward towards Martin, towards the girl, hands balled into fists so tight pain spasms through his fingers. He wants to say something, do something, step in, stop whatever is happening, protect this strange, brash girl. She may have done nothing but insult him, nothing but try to get him angry, gain some advantage over him she could use to escape, Frank’s smart enough to know what she was doing, and yet, and yet, he does not want to see her hurt, with every last good thing inside him, and there are few enough at that, he wants her to emerge from this terrible thing unscathed, unhurt. 

He finds himself wanting to protect her if he has to, shield her from the worst things. Its his responsibility, Frank thinks, his responsibility to keep her safe, get her through this and back to her father, because it was him that Tased her, knocked her out, its his fault she’s here, tied to a chair, wheezing for breath. Its not his fault she’s here, because it was wasn’t him, it would’ve been someone else, Chris or some other hired goon. But still, but still. It was him, and now she’s his burden somehow. But there’s no way to protect her, not from Martin, not from the ideas he clearly has about how this horrible kidnapping is going to go.

“Ms. Castillo,” Martin says calmly, hand still clenched around her shoulder, tight enough, Frank thinks, that his knuckles go bloodless, tight enough that she will have a line of bruises along the curve of her shoulder. His voice, while cool, controlled, has a deadly edge, a knife held up to the light, glinting and sharp and Frank glances desperately at Chris, tries to catch his eyes because things are already spiraling out of control. They’re here to babysit, nothing more, here to watch her until they get the money, and they’re supposed to leave her in the same condition they found her in, as best they can, nightmares and jumping at shadows notwithstanding. That’s inevitable, unavoidable, but this, whatever Martin is doing, this needless violence, is not. “I don’t think you understand how this little adventure is going to go.”

Chris meets Frank’s eyes finally, glances up scowling before dropping his eyes back to his feet, his shoulders hunched. The other man, Frank knows will be no help, not in stopping or even controlling this. He’s simply turned himself inward, chosen to ignore whatever it going on around him.

“I know,” she says, raising her chin, her eyes to Martin’s face as best she can, voice too high, too breathy to really be intimidating, to really be defiant. “That you assholes thought you had a super smart plan to make a quick buck. And you don’t. You never have.”

Martin sighs, gives the girl what Frank can only describe as a sad, pitying smile and lets go of her shoulder. Instead, he moves around behind her chair, crouches slightly as he grasps her left hand. 

And then he hears it, the sickening crack of bone and Laurel gasps again, a high little keening noise that she swallows back, swallows down, eyes clenched shut, teeth sinking into her lower lip to keep from crying out again.

Frank has to turn away, clench his jaw because otherwise he knows he’s going to step in, going to ask Martin what the fuck he’s thinking, going to stop him from fucking torturing this girl for no damn reason. And he can’t do that, because he’s part of this fucking job, and Martin’s in charge, Frank knows that, knows he can’t stand against the other man. But what he can do is try to mitigate what he can, try to protect the girl as best he can, in whatever way he can, until this fucking job is over and she’s safe again. He can’t protect her now, can’t protect her from this, whatever point Martin is trying to make, but he will when and how he can. Because she’s his burden now, his responsibility to see that she gets home, alive and as whole as she can be.

“Now,” Martin says, rising to his feet. “Let me explain some things, Ms. Castillo, about how this is going to go for you. First thing, and I think this is most important if you want to avoid having another finger snapped, is that you are not going to talk unless you are asked a question. Do you understand?”

Laurel glares, still defiant, but nods all the same, her face clenched tight in pain after Martin takes a long step back towards her.

“Good,” Martin says, smiling wide, pleased, thinking he’s gotten her submission. Frank can tell that’s only partially true, can see the way she watches Martin now, watches him and Chris too, gauges the way they react to the other man. She’s anticipating, she’s calculating, she’s trying to find out where the fractures in their relationships lie, each of their strengths or weaknesses. “When you do speak, you’re not going to curse.”

She nods again after a long moment.

“I’m sure this is all very confusing, very upsetting,” Martin says, woodenly, like he’s going through a script someone told him to read, smiling thinly. “So let me make a few things clear. First, you're going to stay here until we get paid, how you stay is up to you. This can be easy or it can be hard, your choice. If you do exactly as I ask, it will be easy.”

Frank looks to Chris again, slumped glumly against the wall next to the stairs, wishing, Frank thinks, to be anywhere else. He wished Chris would look up, meet his eye, because they might not be able to do anything about this, right now, but they might be able to step in later, protect her next time.

“These two men will be watching you most of the time,” he says then, gesturing between Frank and Chris. “They don’t have names, so don’t ask them, they don’t make decisions, so don’t try and con them. You’ll be tied up at all times, if you speak when you’re not spoken to, you’ll be gagged and you’ll be punished. You’ll be fed twice a day, it will not be every twelve hours, so don’t rely on it to tell time. Their shifts will switch at times and hours of my choosing. They have free range to use whatever disciplinary measures they choose should you fail to follow my rules. You’ll be released when your father pays.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Laurel snaps, then seems to realize her mistake because Frank can see the flinch behind her eyes, the way her body tries to curl itself away from Martin.

Martin grins, though very little changes in his expression, on his face. Again, he goes around to the back of the chair, again he crouches and again Frank hears the sharp crack of bone, hears the girl’s high, sharp cry before she smothers it.

“Remember the rules, please,” Martin tells her, moving back to face her. Laurel glares, pitched forward again, her face rigid with anger though Frank can see tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes. “Don’t speak unless you have to. If your father doesn’t pay, then well,” he shrugs, casually. “I guess we’ll just have to see when we get there. But he will, don’t worry.”

Laurel looks worried though, and certain, looks confident that her assessment of her father will bear out, that there is no money coming, worried now about what it will mean for her if it doesn’t, certain that it will lead only to her death.

“You will not see me unless I’m needed to enforce the rules, ensure your compliance. If you have to see me again, Ms. Castillo, I can assure you, I will do more than snap a few fingers.”

“What?” she asks, barreling forward even though everyone in the room knows what a terrible idea it is, knows exactly what’s coming if she speaks. Her eyes are wide, shot through with fear, but she continues anyway, angry, defiant, like she can’t help herself, like whatever Martin will do to her for her outburst is nothing compared to staying silent, to letting him thing he’s won. Its not smart, its probably the opposite of smart, but its damn brave and he’s got to admire that, has to respect someone who’s willing to do something stupid even when they know it is. “You’re gonna chop off my finger, send it back to my father, remind him what happens if he doesn’t pay up, see if you can extort a few million more? Fuck. You.”

Martin’s face tightens with rage though he remains clam, composed. Frank sees Chris glance nervously towards him, question in his glance and Frank can’t quite decide whether they should intervene, whether Chris thinks they ought, can’t really catch his brain up to Martin, to the girl. He doesn’t know if stepping in will make things worse.

Martin steps towards Laurel, hooks his ankle around one of the chair legs and yanks, chair tumbling backwards as Laurel, ziptied to the chair back, follows with a surprised little exhale. Her arms, trapped behind the falling chair get pinned under her weight, head snapping against the concrete floor with a dull thud that sends dread crackling through his nerves.

Her body goes limp, instantly, or as limp as it can with her limbs pinioned to the chair and Frank swings round on Martin.

“The fuck?” he demands, resisting the urge to check on Laurel, check she’s alive, check how bad the damage is. He already cracked her over the head once today, a second blow to the back of her skull is likely to be catastrophic if Martin wasn’t careful, and its clear he wasn’t.

Martin shrugs, looks past Frank. “I told her the rules,” he says simply. “Breaking them has consequences.”

He goes over to her, rights the chair slowly, then probes cautiously at the back of her head. “She’s fine,” he says with something that comes far too close to being an eyeroll for Frank to not bristle at.

“You could’ve fucking killed her,” he insists with a growl, swinging his eyes to Chris, seeing if the other man will have his back. Frank doesn’t have much hope of that, Chris’s scowling down at his shoes like he hopes the floor will swallow him up, still hugging the wall as close to the staircase as he can position himself.

“So could you,” the other man points out. “When you clocked her over the head with that rock earlier.”

“Cause she was gonna knock me out, ruin this whole damn plan if I didn’t,” Frank tells him. “I didn’t have any choice about it.”

“Neither did I,” Martin says, frowning at the girl, slumped forward in the chair again, the only thing keeping her from falling forward the zip ties at her wrists. “I laid out rules, I explained there would be consequences for breaking them. I must deliver on those consequences or she won’t take anything we say seriously.”

“You didn’t have to knock her out again,” Frank insists, gesturing to the slumped girl, head listing to the side, looking for all the world like she’s going to tumble to the ground again.

“An unfortunate side effect,” the other man tells him. “Let me know if there are any issues when she wakes up.”

“Oh yeah?” Frank asks sarcastically, knows he’s pushing too far, knowing he’s going to keep pushing, cause it was dumb, dumb and reckless and this entire job has gone to complete shit. “We just gonna take her to the hospital if there are?”

“There’s nothing to be done about it. But we can at least mitigate any damage. Now,” Martin commands, his voice like ice.

“Let me know if there are any issues when she wakes up. Understood?”

“Sure boss,” Frank grimaces, reconsiders the mocking salute he half wanted to throw.

The other man strides out of the room, Chris glumly following at his heels, and Frank sits down to watch, to wait.

Again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If y'all are reading this, take an extra second and leave some kudos/comments if you liked it.  
> I am a monster that thrives on attention, so lets feed me, yeah?

Its seems like much longer before Laurel wakes again, long enough Frank sneaks upstairs, grabs the novel he’s been reading from his bag, grabs a couple cans of soda and a bag of chips too, settles in for a long wait. He’s beginning to think she’s going to stay unconscious straight through till Chris takes over when she makes a noise like a hiss, a groan and her body hitches, shudders, and then goes still.

She’s trying it again, he thinks, trying to remain still and unnoticed and watchful. But he’s onto her now, knows her tricks, knows her strategies and he’s not letting it go on again.

“Laurel,” Frank snaps. “Eyes up.”

She looks up, eyes blazing, leans back in the chair, her chin raised in defiance but says nothing, just stares at him, face murderous.

“How much pain you in?” he asks, expression softening, because he can tell how badly she’s trying to keep the pain at bay, body stiff and slow moving, like every breath rips through her. Her eyes are distant, shuttered, like she can barely focus through the pain. Frank broke his nose once, when he was fifteen maybe, and that was all he did, didn't have broken fingers and a concussion and who knows what else to deal with too, still remembers the shattering pain, knows that she’s handling it better than he did, but still, he can tell its there, he can tell she feels it, bright scrawls of pain across her mind.

She says nothing though, just continues to glare at him, jaw tight.

“How many fingers he break?” Frank tries.

Again her receives no answer, just her fierce glare burning across his skin.

“Any damage when you fell?”

“Jesus Laurel,” Frank sighs when his questions are met simply with silence so thick its like he didn't speak at all. “You gotta give me something. You want some ice maybe?”

He can see her jaw tighten further, sees the dull shadow of hurt behind her eyes but she continues to glare, continues her silence.

“Fine,” he tells her, running a hand across his beard in frustration. “Sit there and suffer. I know you’re in pain. Just tell me if you want ice and I’ll get some for you, ok?”

Nothing. Not even acknowledgement that she heard Frank’s words, just a glare so fixed it appears carved from stone.

“Fine,” he says again, going around the back of her chair, going to inspect her injured hand. Laurel doesn’t flinch at his approach, though he half expects her to, doesn’t change her expression, doesn’t follow his movements with her head, her eyes, just continues to stare forward as he circles her, though Frank can feel the tension rolling from her skin in waves, the anger and the fear and yeah, the unrelenting pain. And something else, something like caution, like worry, a nervous hum of energy that only starts when he moves out of her line of sight, like he’s some strange and unpredictable creature, most dangerous when she takes her eyes off him, looks away so that she won’t see him strike. “I won’t even grab you some damn aspirin.”

He crouches down, inspects Laurel’s hands. Her left wrist is swollen, puffy and bruised and angry, the zip tie cutting in dangerously to her skin, digging red lines into her pale wrist, almost to the point of blood, Frank thinks. It’s broken, he decides, noticing the way it bends in a way that’s so far beyond natural it almost makes him nauseous.

And two fingers, nearly doubled in size and misshapen, the knuckles all out of joint, crooked and twisted.

“Jesus,” he breathes before he can help himself, slipping his fingers against the zip tie, trying to feel if there’s any give, any space between the plastic and her skin. He can feel the flinch in her body as he touches her, the recoil in pain, in fear, feels her try to shrink away from his touch even though she makes no sound, barely moves. “He sure did a number on you.”  
He sighs again, rocks back on his heels. “Alright,” he tells her after a moment. “You promise not to do anything stupid and I’ll cut the tie on that wrist, replace it with something looser.”

He’s met still, again, with a wall of silence so thick he’s sure he won’t be able to scale it, isn’t sure he could blast a hole in it with dynamite, with kindness, with anything at all.

“I’m still gonna do it,” he assures her. “Cause I’m not an asshole, no matter what you think, but I swear, if you try anything, I’m gonna let him break your other wrist.”

Laurel doesn’t move, doesn’t react, remains quiet and Frank’s mouth twists into a scowl. He sighs, again, heavy, slips his switchblade from his pocket and snaps the ziptie around her left wrist. He makes sure to stick the knife in a different pocket, his back pocket so it’ll be harder for Laurel to reach if she tries anything, harder for her to get her hands on it.

“That’s it,” he says, stepping back quickly in case she does try anything. He doesn’t trust her, not one bit, not after she came after him on the trail, was going to kill him if she got half a chance. “Get some feeling back if you can and then I have to tie you again.”

He feels like he’s talking to himself, feels like he’s talking to the air, a ghost, the wall, certainly not talking to Laurel who doesn’t give any indication she’s heard him, doesn’t move at all, not even her broken wrist to try and get the feeling back, try and ease the biting pain against her skin.

“I’m giving you five minutes,” he shrugs. “You wanna blow ‘em sitting here being pissed at me, that’s on you.”

Still she doesn’t move, doesn’t even acknowledge Frank’s spoken, just sits there, staring forward, glare fixed to her face.  
Frank rolls his eyes, goes and sits against the wall, stares back and Laurel, doesn’t break his gaze away from hers, glares locked on each other in and endless loop. Eventually though, he grins instead, crooked smirk darting across his face as he watches her, waits out the five minutes he’d given her.

She doesn’t use them, stubbornly refuses to acknowledge he’s freed her arm, done anything to assist her, just keeps her wrist resting against the back of the chair, eyes narrowed and burning a hole through Frank.

“Well,” he says after he estimates five minutes have passed, fishes another zip tie from his pants, grasps her wrist as gently as he can, though he can feel the sudden tension, the quick intake of her breath from pain, as his fingertips meet her skin.

She barely moves, but he knows his touch is sharp against her skin, knows she wants to recoil from him. He slips the tie around her wrist, through the tie that’s been threaded through the open back of the chair, tightens it until there’s less than half an inch of give. “Better hope you don’t swell up more.”

He feels like he’s talking to himself, but continues on anyway, not willing to give her the satisfaction of getting him to stop his commentary to her. “I’m still willing to offer you some ice,” he offers, eyebrows raised, hoping she’ll take the bait. “But only if you’ll say something.”

She doesn’t of course, as Frank knew she wouldn’t, just continues to glare across at him, expression unchanging. He’s impressed if he’s being honest, impressed and frustrated at her refusal to break, at her ability to choke back her pain, pretend that it doesn’t even exist, keep it entirely from her face except for a distant stiffness in her jaw, the cloudiness in her gaze.

“Aspirin too,” he offers, tries to tempt her because she’s got to be nearly incoherent with pain; between her hand and her head, Laurel’s like to be seeking any relief available, anything that will take the edge of the fires flooding her blood.

He gets no response whatsoever, not that he really expected one, Laurel turning herself into a ghost, into ice, into the chair itself, removing herself from the world, leaving only her fragile, broken body in its place. He wonders at that, wonders what she’s playing at, if the girl’s strategy for getting through this, this horrible kidnapping, is to pretend she’s somewhere else, to turn some switch in her brain that keeps her from understanding, remembering where she is, if she’s watching some movie playing in her mind, or perhaps watching nothing at all, just a blankness, an absence behind her eyes, like nothing’s been committed to memory, static in the connection.

“Suit yourself,” he tells her, feeling like he’s constantly having to just shrug at her refusal to accept any olive branch he offers. He gets it, he does, why she wants to resist him now, however she can, because he’s the reason she’s in this mess, tied to a chair, her wrist, her fingers broken. “But this’ll all go easier if you talk to me. Make things go faster for you. Me, I’ve got a book, so I don’t give a shit. But you, I’m all you got.”

If anything, Laurel’s glare darkens, narrows, but he can’t quite say for sure, just faces the wall of silence, her resistance the only way she’s capable.

“And I doubt it matters much to you, but you oughta consider it; if it wasn’t me that knocked you out, woulda been someone else,” he tries giving her another smirk, edged with just a hint of sympathy. “You saw what the other guy did to you. Getting me was the luckiest thing that happened to you all day.”

His words have no impact, water balloons thrown against stone walls, her face so still, so calm its like the glassy seas that come before a tidal wave, nothing but rage and fury and chaos under the surface. But he knows its useless to try further, figures he should try ignoring her too now, see if that needles her anymore than constant chatter, figures it certainly can’t hurt.

And so, because he can’t do anything else, can’t keep talking to this manakin of a girl, body present but mind thousands of miles away, he takes his novel back out, starts reading again, looking up every few pages to make sure she hasn’t moved, isn’t trying to attempt some kind of escape, hasn’t passed out again.

He does it out loud though, can’t resist it, resist needling her just a little bit, and yeah, something else at play too, something he doesn’t really want to admit to, a wanting to take her mind off things, the edge off her pain, let the time go a little faster. He can’t tell if she’s interested, if she even hears his voice through the thick walls she’s building around herself, and nothing in her expression ever changes to indicate she’s paying him any attention at all, but he keeps it up all the same, out of some strange mixture of sympathy and spite, just continues where he left off in the middle of the book and keeps reading, hoping he gets some kind of response out of the girl, even its just to tell him to shut the hell up.

Nothing changes, for hours, for a long slow eternity, until he hears the door open at the top of the stairs, the creak of footfalls on the wooden steps. He’s paused occasionally in his reading, to take a sip of water, to inquire, curiously, if Laurel had anything to say yet, asking her if she wanted any water too. Nothing, of course, until Chris descends the steps.

He knows its Chris, recognizes the other man’s footfalls, but Laurel must not, must think its Martin coming down again because he notices her eyes widen, not much, but enough after so long in stillness, so long being flesh made stone that the quick, tiny movement is like a shout, like a spotlight suddenly blaring out into the darkness. Frank can’t help but notice it. He sees them dart towards the stairs, though she doesn’t turn her head, doesn’t make any other motion to indicate she’s scared, worried about Martin’s return. But Frank, Frank can tell, watches her so closely he sees the subtle, minuscule signs, the things she can’t contain, fear and worry and pain.

He sees her breath quicken, not much, but enough, sees the jump in her throat and the pounding of her pulse and he knows she’s scared, of Martin, of what else he will do to her, knows that for all her surface bravery, for all her fierce glares, she’s still a small, scared child, lost and in pain and terrified of what else will come her way.

“Hey,” Chris calls as he gets to the bottom of the steps, addressing Frank only, excluding Laurel completely from the conversation, like she wasn’t ever there.

“Hey,” Frank replies, sitting up straighter, dog earing the page in his novel so that he can return to it later. “Time’s up for me?”

Chris nods. “Yup. There’s some leftover pizza if you want some.”

“Thanks,” Frank tells him, gets to his feet.

“Anything I need to know?”

Frank shakes his head. “Don’t think so, no changes since you were last down here. Doubt she’ll eat any, but I’ll bring some pizza down later.”

The other man shrugs. “You wanna waste your share on her, be my guest. Otherwise we got some canned soup and stuff if you’d rather.”

Frank’s eyes flick towards Laurel, sitting there, still, face blank and tense, but watchful, like she’s listening to their conversation, the unsaid things that pass between them. He shrugs. “We’ll see how hungry I get.”

“She pissed yet?” Chris asks.

Frank chuckles, eyes swinging back towards Laurel, to the new tightness in her gaze, across her jaw. “She’s been pissed since she woke up.”

“Not what I meant,” he laughs.

“Nah,” Frank admits. “Not yet. Just sat here glaring and refusing to say a damn word.”

“Sounds like an awesome afternoon.”

“Yeah,” he says, shoulders hitching, smirking before he can help himself, his ability to control his face much less disciplined than Laurel’s, obviously. “Wasn’t that bad actually. Quiet at least.”

Chris hums. “Yeah, and you left taking her to the can to be my job.”

“Yup. One advantage of her refusing to talk is that she’s not making me do a damn thing for her.”

“Asshole,” Chris mutters, though Frank can’t tell whether its directed towards him or the girl.

He laughs again, directs his next words to Laurel, giving her a crooked, teasing smile, knowing she’ll hate it, want to rip the smile off his face, knowing there’s not a damn thing she can do about it. “Shoulda pissed when you had the chance. Chris’s gonna watch when you go. I’d’ve turned my back.”

The other man rolls his eyes but doesn’t dispute it. Frank knows he will, not because he particularly wants to watch teenagers piss, but because he knows Martin would expect it of them, and Chris, somehow, has become Martin’s man. Frank doesn’t care, knows what Martin never realizes will never come back on Frank, on the girl, but Chris, well, Chris was always better about the rules than Frank. And if Martin says not to take his eyes off Laurel, Frank knows that’s exactly what Chris is gonna do, everywhere, at all times.

And Frank, Frank can’t be worried about that, can’t be worried about what happens when he’s not around or he’ll drive himself crazy. He’s responsible for Laurel, for what happens to her from here on out, wants to do everything he can to ensure she makes it home, makes it out of here whole and as undamaged as possible, but he knows he can’t control everything, can’t make himself responsible for Martin, for Chris too. When he leaves the basement, he needs to leave everything behind, Laurel and her fierce, crushing silence, Chris and his dutiful compliance, the apprehension he has at leaving the two of them alone, of what will happen if he does, if Chris will enforce Martin’s rules any better than Frank will, but he knows he needs to leave it behind so he can sleep, eat, then come back and do it all over again. He just hopes he doesn’t come back to more bruises, more snapped fingers, more muddy, vacant eyes.

“See ya in a bit,” he tells Chris, tells the girl too, like a promise, because she doesn’t know it yet, doesn’t realize it, but Frank is the best thing she’s got right now, the only thing protecting her. Chris’ll recognize it, or Frank hopes he will, know that Frank’s words are as much a warning as anything else, that when he comes back he better come back to Laurel in much the same condition as he left her, that if there’s violence, it must be justified, that this kidnapping is not an excuse to let all their basest instincts free. “Yell if you need anything.”

“Yup,” Chris calls after him as Frank climbs the steps. He finds the rapidly cooling pizza in a box on the table, grabs a couple of slices off the pepperoni, retreats into the bedroom he’s colonized, hoping he can avoid Martin for the next twelve hours, that he won’t be asked to debrief or give the other man any insights into the girl, won’t be tasked with assisting in whatever ransom video, letter, phone call Martin decides to concoct.

He swallows down the pizza, falls into bed. He knows its barely six p.m., the sun just beginning to set, but he’s exhausted and his skull, his hand still crackle with pain and he has to be up in twelve hours to watch Laurel watch him, glare at him like if she could, she’d tear his head from his body and all Frank wants to do is just sink into oblivion, forget this shitty day, forget the shitty things he does for money, that he does because he’s a shitty person.

His sleep is long and dreamless, but only if he lies to himself, because really he tosses and turns and wakes constantly to the pressing weight of eyes that burn like coals, crushing the breath from his lungs, to the sharp prick of teeth against his palm, wakes constantly, gasping, and listening, desperately for the sound of the girl’s screams, certain he’s heard them piercing through the night but unsure whether he’s imagined them or not, whether its guilt conjuring them up in his mind or Chris’s fists against her sternum, his hands snapping more of her bones.

At around 4:00 he gets up, throws on new clothes, sneaks out of the house in the rental car he really should return, and heads off to some twenty four hour big box store, grabs half a dozen more novels, long ones, because Frank isn’t certain of much, but he knows he won’t be getting much sleep the next few days, not until this disaster is over, not until they have Laurel home, back to her family, and their money safely in hand.

She’s gotten into his head somehow, burrowed beneath his skin and he knows he’s not going to be able to shake loose of her, not easily. She’s strange, confusing and angry and entirely unexpected and Frank just wants to do what he can for her, guilt or something deeper, some desire to impress girls that hate him that he never got the chance to work through as a teenager making him act like a goddamn idiot now, making him do things he knows he shouldn't, things far beyond the job description of ‘watch the girl, get paid,’ making him want to talk to her, ease the hours of boredom and pain.

He can’t do a damn thing for her, not really, can’t take her to the ER to get her arm set, can’t give her more than some aspirin to take the edge off, can’t untie her wrists for more than a few minutes, can’t let her have a phone or a tv or a newspaper, but he can give her books, can give her leftover pizza, can give her his time, if she wants it. He can’t give her anything else, but he can give her that. And now, well, half a dozen world lit classics, the kind his Ma’d ship him back in juvie when he wrote home and complained that all he had to read were comics and skin rags because she wanted him to be well read, educated, even if no one paid by the state was doing a damn thing to see that happen. He grabs _Count of Monte Cristo_ , one of his favorites, and _War and Peace_ , just for length, unsure how long they'll be stuck in the basement, and _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ because he thinks everyone likes Hemingway and _The Great Gatsby_ and _Crime and Punishment_ , because well, Frank’s feeling self-pitying and _Pride and Prejudice_ because his sister’s always telling him how much she likes it even though Frank doesn’t get it, not at all, figures it’s a girl thing and maybe Laurel will too.

He heads back to the safe house, slips back downstairs after grabbing the cold, stiff remains of the pizza, relieves a sleepy looking Chris, staring morosely at a spot on the wall Frank thinks might be black mold while Laurel’s glare remains fixed and unmoving somewhere against Chris’s left cheek, the top of his ear.

“You awake?” he asks the other man, nudging him with his toe.

“Might be,” Chris answers, voice rough enough that Frank wonders if he wasn’t just asleep, if Frank’s footfalls on the wooden steps hadn’t been the thing that roused him. Laurel looks half asleep too, her eyes shadowed, the skin of her hollow cheekbones looking bruised, drawn, and he can tell the clench of her jaw, tight with something like desperation but there’s the low simmer of fire behind her gaze, angry, still, and hard, certain. He doubts she’s going to break anytime soon, not going to give in and speak, ask for anything, too much like begging he thinks, too much like accepting her fate.

“She awake?” Frank asks, throwing a nod towards the girl.

“Might be,” Chris says again, blinking hard as he comes awake. “That or she’s managing to glare in her sleep.”

“Wouldn't put it past her,” Frank quips, rolling his eyes at the girl, at the glare she continues to direct somewhere through his chest now. “She’s pretty much perfected that thing.”

Chris nods, glances at Laurel, glances away just as quickly, like he’s ashamed to meet her gaze, embarrassed by her, by the things he’s done to her, that he has to be watching her at all. “Don't think she’s stopped once since you left.”

“Say anything?”

The other man shakes his head. “Hasn’t said a damn word. Wasn't pleased when I took her to the can, but didn't say shit about it. Hasn't even asked for water.”

Frank scowls. “She drink anything though?”

“Nope,” Chris shrugs. “Trying to convince her she’s gotta ask for what she wants.”

“Jesus,” Frank breathes, rolling his eyes between the two of them. “You’re gonna let her die out of stubbornness? Trying to teach her a damn lesson?”

“She’ll cave long before then,” Chris assures him, as they both turn to stare back at the girl, meet her steady, unyielding glare, both of them trying not to flinch not to wither under the crushing force of her gaze.

“You wanna bet on that?” Frank growls, low enough he hopes the girl can’t hear, can’t pick up on the argument simmering between them, thick and heavy. “Cause I think you’re gonna cave long before she will. And then you’re gonna look like an asshole.”

“Nah,” Chris promises. “She’ll cave first. I don't care, remember.”

“You do though,” Frank points out. “You need her alive so you can get paid. She thinks we’re gonna kill her still.”

“She’ll realize we’re not gonna kill her before she actually dies of thirst.”

Frank blows out a long breath, lips twisting. “Chris, just give her some goddamn water.”

“Not till she asks for it,” the other man tells him, hands carding through his hair, pushing the lank strands back from his forehead. “And you better not either. She’s gotta learn who’s in charge here, and it ain't her.”

“Seriously?” Frank asks, a low edge to his voice. “Pretty sure she knows, man. She’s tied to a goddamn chair.”

“Doesn't mean she’s listening to us,” Chris points out. “Doesn't mean she’s not gonna try something the second she’s able.” 

“We’re not like that man, you know that,” Frank tells him, practically begging now, because Laurel’s clearly got into the other man’s head as well, twisted him up into something ugly and mean and petty, concerned about meaningless power plays, meaningless victories, thinking that Laurel’s his enemy, thinking she's anything other than a body, anything other than a girl who just wants to go home. Frank knows he’s projecting his own shit, his own doubts and guilts on Laurel, not so naïve, not so deluded as to lie to himself that the things he’s thinking about her are anything other than Frank’s own mind filling in the gaps, the details to suit his own ends. He knows that his guilt at what he’s done to her is making Frank imagine things, making him imagine more to her silence, her pain and anger are more than they are, he can recognize it even as he immerses himself in it, and he knows Chris’s doing the same. “Who cares what she does as long as we keep her tied up till we get paid.”

He can see Chris grit his teeth, sees his stubborn glare but eventually the other man lets it go. “I can’t stop you,” he tells Frank. “But you're making the wrong choice here. She’s gotta understand anything that happens, from here on out, happens because we allow it to.”

“Get some sleep,” Frank tells him, scrubbing a hand through his beard. “Stop twisting yourself up about her not talking. Who cares anyway? So what if she doesn't talk. Doesn't keep us from getting what we came here for anyway.”

Chris shoots him another long look, doubtful, his shoulders hunching and he slouches upstairs without another word. That's another thing wrong with kidnappings, Frank thinks, with he and Chris on alternating shifts watching the girl, they have no time to sit down, compare notes, get themselves on the same page. They’re tense and exhausted and bored and their nerves are fraying, already and they can’t talk to each other, not with any real honesty, any real depth, because Laurel will always be there, watching, listening, preventing them from discussing her, her behavior, her reactions, how they should best deal with her.

Martin should really come down here, should really pull his own damn weight, Frank thinks, spend a couple hours watching the girl so Chris and he don't have to spend twelve hours at a time sitting in a cramped little basement, staring at a silent, furious girl, wondering if they’re going crazy, if they’re talking to a ghost because she refuses to react, refuses to speak, even acknowledge that they exist.

“Well,” Frank asks, after he watches Chris's retreating back, watches the other man vanish up the stairs. “You enjoy his company more than mine?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry frandz, Laurel still doesn't talk in this one, lol...better luck next chapter!  
> Leave some love if you're feeling so inclined. <3

Laurel’s still staring off in the distance, not even looking at him but somewhere a few inches to his left, where Chris’s body once was, doesn't react to his words.

“Should prefer me,” Frank tells her, gesturing to the leftover pizza. “I was nice enough to bring you some grub. He couldn't give a shit if you starved to death.”

He thinks her glare deepens like she’s utterly rejecting his words, fighting him at every turn but again he’s faced with only silence.

“You’ll be thanking me in a bit,” he says, certain, because its been near twenty four hours since she’s eaten and he knows her stomach will be gnawing desperately at itself, craving food, anything to fill it. The girl’s a tough little thing, that much is glaringly obvious, but she’s not tough enough, Frank thinks, to hold out on food, on water for too long. She’s tough, but she’s still a rich girl, unused to hunger, unused to deprivation. She’ll hold out, Frank thinks, long enough to make a point, because she’s fierce and angry and she’s decided she has some point to make, but she’ll cave soon enough, he’s certain of that. As long as Frank makes the offer, makes it seem like it’s him caving in the offering, him conceding defeat in making the concession to give her food, water, whatever, he thinks she’ll take the out, take the food, and after that, well, once she’s given in on the grub, he thinks that words will follow soon after. “Couple hours you’ll think the pizza’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”

He rolls his eyes when she tightens her jaw, narrows her eyes fractionally, still staring at the space left by Chris’s absence, ignores the offered pizza though Frank can see the imperceptible widening of her nostrils, picking up the scent of the food, see the way her tongue passes across her lips, wetting them, once and then again like she wants to reach out, taste the offering.

“No strings,” he assures her, sending her a quick, coaxing smile, holding out the pizza in offering, looking for anything, any sign, any signal that suggests she wants it, will take a bite if he brings the slice to her lips. “Don't need to talk, don't need to give me anything, just some food if you want it.”

He’s hoping for a response, not really expecting one and he doesn't get it. She wants the food, that much he knows, but she’s not ready to give into him, not yet.

“I’ll grab you some water too,” he offers, setting the plate down and picking up one of Chris’s empty soda cans, ducking into the bathroom and filling the can as full as he can get it from the tap.

He holds it out to her when he gets back, watches her eyes dart towards the proffered can, just for a moment, watches her swallow convulsively and he knows her throat burns desperately for water, knows how she must crave it after going on twenty four hours without it. But then her eyes swing back towards the wall, and she wets her lips again, cracked and chapped already, a split already appearing in the right corner, and the hunger, the desperate wanting vanishes again, tamped down and buried beneath her fierce, roiling rage.

“Suit yourself,” he tells her, shoulders hitching, though something ugly and sour twists in his stomach as she rejects the water. He knows how desperate she must be, knows how she must crave it, how dry and cracked her throat must be, how her tongue must burn with unquenchable fire. He’s certain she’s gone lightheaded, certain her thirst sits like a lead weight in her gut, clawing at her skin, even her breathing hurting now. But though he knows its biologically certain, he can see none of it in her eyes, in the hard set of her teeth. She’s terrifying in her intensity, in her commitment to her silence, to her anger and Frank would be awed if he took a second to think about it. The girl is like some righteous, fearsome god, filled with a burning anger that consumes her, consumes him, consumes the world until there is nothing left, nothing that can stand in its path.

He knows a few more hours and he’s going to be the one begging, begging her to drink, to eat, to just give in and let herself let go of just a fraction of her rage, to just let herself give in and survive, that for all he’s pretending he doesn’t care, Frank cares, god how he cares, despite himself, about this strange girl, her spitting anger. “You change your mind, just gotta ask.”  
Frank sits back against he wall across from her, pulls out the nearly finished novel they’ve been plowing through, gives her a prompting look, eyebrows raised. “Speak now or you’re gonna get more story time outta me.”

Something in her lip twitches, pulls, something almost like a smile, or the fleeting start of a smile before it flares and dies, almost too fast for Frank to see, the rapid beating of hummingbird wings against the air, so briefly, so minutely Frank isn’t sure he hasn't imagined it completely because nothing else changes in her face, no other movements, no other pull of muscles. Not even her glare eases, lessens its sharp intensity, the way it positively pins him in place.

“Good choice,” he tells her, flashing her a crooked grin, choosing to believe that he almost got her to smile, almost got her to crack, loosen the iron grip she has on her anger, her fear and rage and pain, almost broke through the ice surrounding her heart. “I knew you were secretly digging my smooth reading voice.”

He’s hoping, secretly, in a place deep inside his chest, a place he can’t quite bring himself to examine, look at too closely, that he gets another tiny, hidden thing like a smile from her, the quiet pulling of her lips, but he gets nothing further, no softening in her gaze, no lessening of the sharp sneer curling her lips.

“Alright then,” he says, cracks the book and begins reading. He gets barely a page before he pauses, slips a finger in between the paper, looks up again at Laurel. “Hey, if you change your mind, about anything, water or the pizza or, I dunno, you only eat waffles or something, just lemme know, ok? Really. I’m not, I’m not gonna be like my buddy, make you beg for grub.”

He swears again he sees something in her gaze, not a smile this time, but something, something like curiosity, like confusion or calculation behind her eyes, like she’s trying to analyze Frank, make out the shape of him when all she has are shadows, disparate pieces; an elbow here, a finger there, maybe the outline of his nose, the shape of his ear, trying to understand him, piece him together, trying to know him, who he is and what that means for her, here, in this basement.

But then it slips beneath the waves again, swallowed down behind her glare, and it vanishes just as quickly as it came. “No worries,” he says with a shrug. “No pressure, but if you do, just lemme know.”

He cracks the book again, picks back up and plows forward through the novel. He wonders idly if she’d picked up enough of the plot yesterday to no longer be lost, to know, more or less, what’s going on, or if perhaps she’s read it before, knows already what to expect, what’s coming through the next few pages. Frank thinks, perhaps, that if she did she’d give up her silence, give up her commitment to impersonating a stone, a statute, and try and ruin the book for him, spoil the plot in some strange, tiny act of revenge.

He watches her, even as he focuses on the words of the page, watches her from downcast eyes, looks for any change in her eyes, her expression, any minuscule pull of muscles in her face, around her mouth, because for a girl who’s done nothing but glare, sneer at him, she has a wonderfully expressive mouth, Frank thinks, wide, with full lips and a strange downward cast to it, like she’s been built for unhappiness, for tragedy, like her life will have more need for frowns than smiles.

He hates it, he thinks, no reason for it, but hates it all the same, that he’s adding to that lopsided total, adding to the scowls twisting her lips. She should have nothing but happiness, Frank decides, for as little as he knows her, he’s certain she is owed more happiness in her life than she’s been given, owed more because of Frank’s own actions, because Frank has dragged her here, into this basement, told her she can’t go home, not until someone else does something, not until her father pays them, meting out punishment to this small, sharp girl for something her father did long ago, rather than anything she deserves.

He reads for two hours, three perhaps, glancing up every few pages to watch the girl, reassure himself she's still there, still alive, that she hasn’t cracked yet, isn't silently begging him for food, water, something. He doesn't think she notices his gaze, his lifted eyes, she’s certainly not looking towards him when he does, still staring straight ahead at the space Chris left behind, and now Frank wonders if perhaps she no longer even has the strength left to turn her head, swing her eyes to him.

Even so, her expression remains fixed, blank and hard as diamonds though he suspects she doesn't even realize he’s watching her, doesn't even notice him watching her, assessing her, still.

Eventually his voice grows ragged, rough and hoarse, like sandpaper against the cadence of his words. He finishes up a paragraph, grabs the soda can he filled earlier, takes a quick swig then immediately spits it out.

“The fuck,” he growls, the taste of ashes on his tongue, wet and heavy and clinging to his mouth, his throat even as he tries to spit the taste out, spit out the last of whatever made it into his mouth. “Fuck.”

Laurel glances up, slow and sluggish, like her head is too heavy for her neck, like she’s been drugged and can only respond to his words, his movements, long slow moments after they’ve occurred, everything moving too fast for her delayed reactions, for the slow firing of synapses in her thirsty, hammering brain. There’s something like recognition in her eyes, understanding and he wonders, gaping and confused, what she’s done, how she’s managed to put something horrible, something positively disgusting in his water, before his own brain catches up with logic, with recognition.

“You knew,” he tells her slowly, certain, still coughing against the acrid taste in his mouth, heavy and slick. “That’s why you wouldn't drink, or part of it. You knew whatever was in the can.”

There’s something like an echo behind her eyes and he knows its true; whatever Chris put in the can, the girl recognizes it, knew it and while she probably still would’ve refused the water he offered, that knowledge probably, almost certainly contributed. “I know you hate me,” he tells her, spitting somewhere off to the side, trying to clear that taste from his tongue. “But Jesus, you coulda warned me. That was fucking awful. Still fucking awful.”

Something shines behind her eyes, almost a smirk, though there’s nothing that shifts beyond the blue of her gaze and Frank knows she’d be laughing at him, edged and teasing were she not so thoroughly committed to silence, to anger.

“Serves me fucking right, I suppose,” he mutters, getting to his feet, still spitting, heads into he bathroom and sticks his head under the tap, gulps down water until the taste of ashes, of acrid smoke vanishes from his mouth. He scrubs a hand across his beard, flicking water from the sharp bristles of his whiskers as he returns to her.

“That asshole was smoking down here wasn't he?” Frank asks as he returns to her. “And he put the butt in here and I fucking drank it.”

There’s a slight turn of the girl’s head, just a degree or two, fractional, and behind the pain, behind the anger in her gaze, there’s something shining like laughter, pleased and smirking.

“Well fuck him,” he grumbles, still scowling, still tasting the waterlogged ashes at the back of his throat, back by his eyeteeth. “And I’d say fuck you too, but I suppose I deserved it, at least where you’re concerned, huh. Well, I’ll even offer you a damn water bottle if you want it. Don’t gotta say anything, just nod, ok?”

Her eyes glide slowly to his, meet Frank’s eyes, dull and shuttered with pain, like it takes the last of her reserves, the last of her energy to do so. She meets his gaze, yes, but doesn't nod, just meets his eyes and stares.

“Ok, ok,” he growls, runs his fingers through his beard, across his face to keep his expression neutral, keep the frustration and rising anger off his face. Its what she wants, he knows, and more than that, it’ll cloud his mind, make him fuzzy and reactive and make it that much more likely to miss something, something important. He doesn't really think she has it in her, the energy or the brain power or the foresight to try anything, not now, but well, he doesn't want to risk it, doesn't want to wind up holding his dick like an idiot. “I won’t bring it up again, not for a while at least.”

She continues to stare at him, her eyes drilling through him like she can see into his brain, see the lie he’s telling. “Yeah, yeah I know,” he mutters when her expression edges towards doubtful, mocking, though he’s fairly certain he’s imagining the shift in her expression, desperate for some change in her, some acknowledgement that she’s hearing his words, that he’s not talking to the air, to himself.

He sits back down again, back against the wall as he watches her for long moments before cracking one of the fresh water bottles, gulping half of it down. Laurel’s eyes watch him, eagerly, desperately, watch the slow bob of his throat, track his swallows, fixed on his face like she wants to memorize his movements, like if she stares at him long enough, imagines the slide of water down her own throat, the cool taste of it against her own tongue, she’ll somehow find herself no longer burning with thirst, no longer feel the cracks in her lips, the desperate rasp of her breath across her parched mouth.

“Just give me something, Laurel, anything, and the water’s yours,” he tells her before wiping the lingering moisture away from his lower lip, his beard, Laurel’s eyes going wide, wanting, lips parting just slightly as her tongue wets her lips, desperate.

Her jaw clamps shut, glare returning to her eyes and they speak no more on it, Frank returning to his book, plowing through it because Laurel seems determined not to give him anything, any satisfaction, determined not to crack. They go on like that for another hour, maybe two before Frank stops again, drinks the rest of the bottle. A few times he thinks he sees her slumping forward, sagging against the bonds at her wrists, like she’s falling asleep, her eyes heavy and her gaze dimming like the slow fade of a sunset. She doesn't jerk back to consciousness, abrupt and startled, just opens her eyes, or widens them, and her glare is back, just straightens up against the chair back, stiffens her spine, tightens her jaw and she returns to herself, cloaks herself in her anger, her curious, solid anger, breathing, growing like a living thing inside Laurel’s chest. Its been over twenty four hours now since she slept, and while he knows she spent hours, four or five of them, unconscious, he knows from experience how little that actually helps, how little like sleep unconsciousness is.

But he’s clearly not going to talk her into anything, going to convince her to take a drink before she’s damn well good and ready, though its not entirely clear at all, to Frank at least, whether that will happen before or after she passes out again, from dehydration this time, before he has to force the damn water down her throat. That’s where this showdown is going, he can see that part clear as day, because Martin is not going to let this strange, prickly girl dictate whether he gets paid or not and is going to be willing to keep her alive by whatever means necessary to ensure that payday.

So he just goes back to the novel, continues to read until, another hour, maybe two, later, he stops, leaving himself a few more chapters to go.

“You know you can only go about three days without water,” he tells her, closing the novel, crossing his arms over his chest, watching her, always fucking watching her, his entire life spent watching her. “Some people’ve gone longer, but they also didn't run five miles through the damn swamp before that. You’ve probably got two, two and a half.”

He thinks perhaps her eyes widen a little, thinks something shifts in her face until her expression looks skeptical, maybe a quirking, a pulling to her lips, though if pressed he wouldn't be able to say what changed. “You think I’m shitting you, I’m not. I was a Boy Scout, or maybe my cellie went on a hunger strike, or maybe I’ve been through these things so many times I just know when you’ll cave,” he tells her casually, little shrug hitching his shoulders. They’re all true, technically, but he’s perfectly content to let her believe whatever she wants, as long as she listens, thinks she knows what he’s talking about, as long as it nudges her towards finally taking a damn sip of water.

“And well,” he tells her, lips twisting into an ironic scowl. “You’re really looking at even less, because if my buddy comes back down, or your finger snapping friend, and you haven't drank anything, they’re liable to make you, whether you want to or not.”

There’s a slight widening to her pupils, a slight wrinkle to the skin at her temples, along the curve of her eye, worry, Frank thinks, apprehension. She knows herself, Frank thinks, knows she’s not going to give in, but she’s scared of Martin, of Chris, of the things they will do if she isn’t the compliant body they want her to be, if she is who she is, this strange, sharp girl with the dangerous eyes.

“Look, you have maybe four, five hours until one of my partners come back down. They’re either gonna force you to drink or make you beg for it,” he explains, fixing her with an open, prompting look. “I’m your best bet kid. I don't need you to do anything but drink.

Her chin raises fractionally, defiant and angry, and Frank sighs, practically nearing defeat himself, ready to be the one to do the begging, to plead with Laurel to just take one sip and he’ll do anything.

“Please,” Frank says, an edge like begging, high and desperate creeping into his words. He can’t even be ashamed, embarrassed because she looks like she’s about to collapse, crumble, her face is pale and drawn and there’s a thin sheen of sweat he somehow missed clinging to her temples. “C’mon, kid. I know you’re hurting and I know you don't wanna give in, but please just drink something, ok? Don't even nod, alright, I’ll just give you the bottle and you can either drink or get soaked. Sound ok?”

He isn't really sure what he’s expecting, more silence probably, but he thinks he sees something soften in her eyes, something like agreement, maybe, if he’s not imagining it, creating something out of thin air and his own desperation.

He grabs one of the water bottles, cracks it open, tips it a few centimeters towards Laurel in offering. There’s a long moment that hangs, tense, between them like a wire humming with electricity, with friction, before the brittle clench in the girl’s jaw softens and her mouth swings open an inch, two maybe, slow and stiff, but opens all the same.

After so long immobile, so long unmoving the motion of her mouth is jarring, too wide and too big, like a shout, like an explosion, so bright that Frank has to turn away, avert his eyes. He’s spent hours, nearly a full day now, watching the minute play of muscles beneath her skin, the slow shifts in her eyes, the widening of her pupils or the hard bite of her jaw or the quirk of her lips that when real, true movement comes, its too much, looks ugly and jarring and too big, a snake unhinging its jaw, and Frank can’t quite understand what it means, what signals she’s giving off with the movement, can’t translate her body into language anymore. But he doesn't pause for long, just steps forward, places the bottle against the fullness of her lower lip, cracked and dry already, and tips, just slightly, lets a few millimeters of liquid slide down her throat.

He thinks they both make a noise like a sigh, a moan of relief as the water hits her tongue, because well, Frank feels like a crushing weights been lifted from his shoulders, finally, doesn't feel like he’s won, gained some victory over the girl, but feels like relief, like salvation he never thought would come. He feels responsible for her, for all the suffering she’s done in the past twenty four hours because at the end of the day, its his fault she’s here, his fault she’s tied to this chair and trying to rebel against her captors the only way she knows how, and if he can relieve some of that suffering, well, it feels like he can stop suffering too, stop some of the guilt that claws against his chest, roils his stomach.

She swallows greedily, throat bobbing desperately, sucking the water down even faster than Frank can pour it, eyes closing in something he can only describe as prayer.

“Not so fast,” he tells her softly, voice gentle, almost like a caress. “You’re gonna choke, if you don't slow down, gonna get sick.”

Her eyes open, swing to his, and Frank’s half surprised when she gives a short nod of her chin, her swallows going slow, measured. If he didn't know better he’d wonder if she was raised by a drill sergeant, sent to a military school, something, because her will, her discipline is something he’s not sure he’s ever seen before, certainly never seen in someone her age, a small, sharp girl with a will like diamonds. It stuns him, terrifies him, makes him wonder for long slow moments if he has any hope of coming out ahead in this thing they’re playing, this battle their engaged in, if maybe, the girl is right and they picked the wrong damn girl to kidnap.

“I promise,” he says, soft still, fingers tripping against the skin of her chin, along the razor edge of her jaw, as he tilts the bottle further, lets more water slip down her throat. “I’m not gonna take it away till you're done. I’m not that guy.”

He knows she doesn't believe him, has no reason to, none whatsoever, but he tells her anyway, hopes that someday she will, will know that his words are good, that they’re followed, always, by actions. But at least her pace slows, though there’s still something desperate, greedy about her mouth, lips, lurking behind her eyes. A slow trickle of water slips from between her parted lips, winds down her chin, across the long lines of her throat, her neck, Frank’s eyes following the trail of the bead of water, drawn like a magnet to the long, slow slide of the drop along her skin, until it catches against the jutting angle of her collarbone and Frank realizes he’s stared far, far too long at something too bright, too wild, will be staring at the sun until he goes blind.

“I promise,” he tells her again as she makes another little noise like a sigh, wanting and needy and ragged. “I’ll refill it too, if you want. Don't even gotta do anything, just drink.”

She nods, just a quick little jerk of her chin in acknowledgment, but its enough, its something, something that sets his breath quickening, sets him feeling like he can do anything, conquer any challenge. Its not speech, far from speech, not even really communication at all, but it's something, it’s a start, a signal that he’s made it through somehow, to the other side. Where, he doesn't know, can’t begin to guess, but he knows he’s stepped through some invisible barrier, passed some test or met some requirement or something, something and she is no longer pretending he doesn't exist, she doesn't exist, no longer simply refusing life itself. And that's because of him.

Laurel finishes the bottle, eyes suddenly big, the blue of them practically drowning Frank, pulling him under beneath furious, churning waves.

“Relax, relax,” he tells her as her eyes go wide, fearful, like she’s certain she’s finished the last liquid in all the world, swallowing convulsively like once she started, Laurel can’t stop drinking. “I’ll grab you more.”

He feels briefly bad about filling the bottle from the tap in the bathroom, figures she won’t really care, glad she’s getting something, anything without having to concede defeat, without having to give up her glares and her silence, without any pain or fear.

If she cares she certainly doesn't indicate it when he gets back, just gulps greedily at the bottle again when he returns it to her lips.

“Easy,” he instructs again, because she returns to drinking like she was terrified he’d reconsider, would take the offering away, yank it from her outstretched fingers. “Easy.”

She directs a glare at him, weak though, nothing like the intense heat she’d previously employed against him, raking his skin over hot coals, like she’s willing to let his words slide, accept them with only minimal protest.

“You want pizza too?” he asks, fingers slipping, almost of their own volition, against the smooth softness of her skin, against her cheek, brushing against the slow curve of her face. “Anything? Aspirin?”

Nothing intensifies in her gaze, so Frank decides to take the risk, decides to interpret her silence, her look as assent, figures it can’t hurt, can only set him back to where he was, with Laurel silently glaring at him, refusing all offers of food, water. But he’s bought her another twenty four hours, at least, before she crumbles under the burning thirst, the gnawing hunger. He’s bought them all a little bit of time.

“We’ll do pizza first, yeah?” he tries. “After this long, I doubt you’re even noticing the pain anymore.”

The girl almost rolls her eyes, almost, a little noise that could have become a scoff getting trapped against her teeth because she refuses to give him the satisfaction of speech but wants him to know how full of shit she thinks he is. It dies though, almost as soon as it turns into sound, but its there all the same and Frank and the girl both hear it, though he does his best to ignore it, pretend he hasn't heard, pretend he doesn't know, certain, that she’s thawing, caving, finally, her anger and fear and pain softening into something banal, something typical like mere hatred.

“Or now,” he corrects, grinning crookedly, sheepishly, scrubbing his free hand across his beard. “While we’ve still got the water out.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Laurel may or may not actually utter a word (or two)
> 
> Lemme know me if it was worth the wait :)

He fishes around through his pockets, pulls out the painkillers he stuffed there what seems like a lifetime ago, on his way down to see her the first time, when he thought Laurel’d just need something for her head, not her fingers, her wrist, for half a dozen other places on her body that ache and burn and scream.

“See if these help a bit,” he tells her, holding three up between his fingers so she can see them, waiting until she opens her mouth for him, catching them on her tongue as Frank’s breath catches in his throat, careful, careful not to let any place on his body brush against hers, too dangerous, he knows, like he will shatter whatever truce they’ve come to, ignite the fragile thing between them into an inferno. “If not, I can see what else I can scrounge up. I can’t imagine vikes or Percocet’ll be hard to come by.”

He tips the water bottle to her lips again, waits while the girl takes a few quick swallows, gives him a look that indicates she’s clearly done, leans back as far as she can go, twists her head from the bottle.

“My buddy uncuff you at all?” he asks then, idly, noticing the tightness that flits across her brow, the stiffness in the movement of her muscles. He hums, figures that even without any confirmation from Laurel, he knows the answer to that one. “I’ll uncuff your right hand to eat, alright. Then we’ll do the left. Ten minutes sound ok? Each.”

He gives her another crooked grin, sees the furtive beginnings of a softness in her gaze, or thinks he does, or hopes he does, at this point Frank isn't really even sure what’s real and what’s imagined in Laurel’s face anymore, too much time spent starting at her, carefully, too closely, too intensely that it all blurs, blends together in his mind, a swirling mix of blue grey eyes and dark hair and wide scowls slashing across full lips. “I’d like to give you longer, but I can’t, ok? Anyone finds out I’m even giving you this, well, it ain't gonna happen again, that's for damn sure.”

She blinks, the only reaction he gets, just a long, slow blink, almost owlish, but its only then he realizes she’s not glaring at him anymore, not really, just watching him, more curious than anything, assessing, still directing a withering glare at him but there’s not much heat behind it, nothing real, her expression more out of habit than anything, Frank thinks.

He grabs the pocketknife from his back pocket, snaps the zip tie around her right wrist, with a quick flick of his fingers. He waits, for long moments, as the girl slowly begins to bring feeling back into her fingers, her hand, flexing her fingers slowly into a fist then spreading them again, in and out, fist to outspread fingers, slowly and then picking up speed as blood, feeling returns to her limb. Next she works at her wrist, moving it around and around, slowly rolling her wrist in long circular movements, wincing at she goes, teeth sinking heavy into her lower lip to keep herself silent, keep from crying out.

“Any skin broken there?” he asks her as she begins to flex her elbow, back and forth, curling it tight to her chest and then extending it. She’s methodical, Frank thinks, even in her pain, putting her hurt aside or burying it down deep, something, while she returns feeling to her arm, while she works the stiffness, the soreness from her limbs.

He doesn't expect a response from her; he’s as good as certain their truce doesn't include Laurel speaking, doesn't include her even cracking the door to him to her thoughts, her feelings, doesn't even include really letting him know that she’s in pain at all.

He holds out his hand instead, allows her to choose, or not, to let him see if there’s any damage to the thin skin of her wrist. Eventually she does, pauses, her arm curled up tight against her chest and stares at him for long moments, silently, searchingly, before she extends her arm again, rests her hand, palm up in his, light, just barely brushing against his skin, like she’s afraid to touch him, get too close, afraid of what he will do. He can feel the tension in her skin, the apprehension, the doubt, but can feel too, the way she forces it from her body, forces herself to relax, lets her hand go loose, relaxed in his grasp.

He runs his thumb along the angry red line scoring her wrist, scowls as he feels her flinch, feel her sharp intake of breath like a hiss. “Sorry,” he tells her, probing further at the wound, making sure its not bleeding, not too raw. “I’ll see what I can do about it. But I’m not sure there’s much to be done.”

Laurel’s shoulders hitch and she pulls her hand away, begins rolling her shoulder, her neck, working out the last of the kinks from her cramped muscles, a little grimace flitting across her face, just a little scowl tugging at the corners of her lips, a slight narrowing of her eyes, a contracting of her pupils until all he sees is blue grey like the sky.

Eventually she stops, places her free hand against her lap, cocks her head fractionally as she watches Frank, watches him for something, though what he’s not sure. She looks prompting, expectant almost, though he couldn't say why.  
“Oh,” he says after long, slow moments watching her, smirk sliding across his face. “Oh, right. Your dinner, huh?”

Laurel’s head inclines a few degrees more; agreement Frank decides, a yes.

He hands over the grease soaked paper plate, watches her rip into the first slice, teeth bared, barely pausing to chew before she takes another bite, eyes rolling back, slipping closed in pleasure.

“Pretty soon we’ll have you good as new,” he tells her, fixing her with a teasing smirk as she starts in on the second slice. “Gallon of water, couple slices of pizza and some painkillers, you’re ready for Friday night.”

He expects to get a reaction out of her, another glare, a pause in her attack on the pizza, but he gets neither of those, just a slight narrowing of her eyes, wary and watchful, like she’s trying to hear the things that lurk beneath his words, the things he doesn't say when he speaks.

She inclines her head again, just slightly then, towards her left shoulder, the arm still tied to the chair.

“Finish eating first,” he teases when she gives him a look, still a glare, but more stubborn than anything, like he’s forgetting the most basic things and she has to remind him of his promises. “Then you’ll get the left one.”

She scowls, just a little, gives him a derisive look, eyes widening and her mouth pulling into a crooked little frown but she bites down the last of the pizza, reaches out, expectant, for the water bottle again.

“You know,” he tells her, still smirking, testing his luck, testing how much he can get away with, liking this new version of the girl that will actually communicate with him, silently all the same, but conveys enough without words Frank no longer feels like he’s a man standing on the edge of a cliff shouting into the distance at nothing, like perhaps his smoke signals have been picked up and Laurel’s sending her own code back to him across the vast distance between them. “You’re as good as talking to me. Why don't you just use your words, huh?”

Laurel’s glare returns in full force, of course it does, he expected no less, and her jaw tightens dangerously, stiff and locked.

“Oh come on,” he tells her, he chuckles. “No point in retreating now. You’ve already surrendered. I have too. Mutual surrender, armistice isn't that what its called?”

Something shifts in her face then, like a door slamming shut, like all feeling, emotion draining out of her, like the window he’s been given to her thoughts, her feelings has suddenly vanished as though it was never there, erased from the world entirely. She doesn't go back to glaring, no, because then at least he’d know what she was feeling, instead her face goes blank again, empty like she’s retreated behind steel and brick and distance.

“No,” he corrects, an apology in his sheepish smile. “No armistice then. Gotcha. Well, you still want that left arm out for a few? I promised after all, no strings about it.”

Obligingly, Laurel returns her right hand behind her back, slowly, an ironic little smile playing around her lips. Frank zips her right wrist, tight enough he knows she won’t be able to slip out, loose enough he hopes it won’t cut at her wrists any further.

Once he’s done that, secured the zip at her wrist to the tie threaded through the chair, he cuts the one on her left wrist, frees her broken arm.

Instead of working the stiffness, the tension out of her left arm as she did her right, Laurel just cradles the limb against her chest, curves her shoulders in as best she can to shield the arm, tight against her stomach, across her chest.

Frank watches as her eyes slip closed, tight, as her breath comes harsh and rasping, something like a whimper ripped from her chest until she sucks in a long gulp of air, trembling, settles her breathing, settles her pain. He thinks perhaps that when her arm was behind her, pinioned, she was better able to ignore the break, better able to push the pain away and pretend it was something some other girl was feeling, a hurt removed from her own body. But now, Frank wonders if the pain comes rushing back, doubled, as she moves the limb, as she brings it close to her heart, wonders if he didn’t perhaps do more harm than good by reminding her that her hand even exists as a part of her body, by reminding her there’s more pain in the world to feel, more pain her body can hold. She stays like that, eyes closed, breathing slowly through her nose, arm pressed tight against her body like she can bury the limb beneath the skin of her chest, bury it down deep and suppress the pain, build a shield around her mind as she shields her arm with her body, tell herself not to feel any pain, convince herself she feels nothing.

“You need something stronger?” he asks, voice soft, feeling like anything more will scrape against her mind like sandpaper, will only cause her more pain. “I can see what I can scrounge up next time I go topside.”

The corners of her mouth twitch, slip down into the start of a frown, wide, full mouth sliced through with unhappiness.

“Can’t go up till then,” he explains, feeling the need to explain because otherwise he’s just an asshole, just a man who ignores her suffering, who doesn't care about the pain she’s in. “I would if I could. But I’ll bring you something when I can.”

Laurel’s eyes open half an inch and she stares at him through heavy lidded eyes, bleary, hazy. She takes a deep breath, blows it out, slowly, evenly before staring down at her injured arm, curling ever inward, her shoulders, her spine hunched with pain.

“I’ll grab something,” he promises her. “And then if you’d rather have aspirin, that's cool too. But its nice to have options, yeah?”

She raises her eyes, meets his, teeth sunk deep into her lower lip, her face pale and waxy and Frank realizes, all over again, just how much pain she must be in, still, just how little the throb has eased in the day since it happened. He’s never had to linger with an injury, not a bad one like this, and it makes him ache for her, deep within his chest, for the pain she’s been given that she doesn't deserve, not at all, for the things she’s being forced to face, heaped on her as punishment for her father, for men who’s sins have never been hers.

He feels guilty too, that he can’t help her, not in any way that actually matters, can’t do anything to ease that pain, can only offer her words and a couple of Tylenol. And guilty because for all his staring at her, for all he’s practically memorized her face, her body, communicated with her using only his ability to read the muscles in her face, he’s somehow overlooked the bigger picture, the sallowness of her skin, the tightness around her jaw, her eyes, the thin sheen of sweat along her temples. Or he noticed them, discarded them as irrelevant to his personal interest in reading her thoughts, getting some form of communication from the girl, details that didn't convey her thoughts, couldn’t help Frank piece together the puzzle of her.

The thought gnaws at him, relentlessly, chews something painful at the back of his mind that for all he’s been examining her, putting Laurel Castillo under a microscope and memorizing each part of her in turn, hoping for some clue, some catch that will crack open the key to her, the key to everything, he’s ignored the ugly things, the things he doesn't want to see, doesn't want to have to know. He’s ignored the muddiness in her eyes, the way they churn with pain, distant, somehow, like she's had to close off her thoughts, retreat behind high, thick walls so she doesn't have to feel.

He feels guilty too, for thinking for even half a moment that he knew her, knew anything about her, her thoughts or her feelings or the way her body has learned to communicate either. He doesn't know her, he knows only what she’s allowed him to see, knows only the things spilling through the crack in the door Laurel is in too much pain to fully keep shut. He knows nothing, and any knowledge he’s gleaned is nothing compared to the sprawling vastness of what he doesn't.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her again, tells her for what feels like the thousandth time, wonders if soon the words will have lost all meaning, if soon they won’t be anything at all. “For all this, I really am. None of it was supposed to go this way.”

Laurel lifts her eyes to his and some of the lurking shadows ease, like she summons clarity from somewhere, some hidden reserve of strength to push the pain back, down so she can focus on him. She stares, blankly at him, something mocking, almost derisive in her stare as her eyes pin him in place as thoroughly as if he’d been the one tied up.

“I am,” he insists, not sure why he’s so interested in making the point, knowing only that he must, that he wants her to know, to believe, that Frank never intended things to head down to this disaster. “Not your fault, of course, but things kinda went off the rails when you didn't act like we were expecting.”

The spotlight of her glare intensifies, slipping right through his body like a knife, tearing through his insides and Frank knows he fucked up, has said the absolute wrong thing to her. She lifts one eyebrow, just slightly, the wide curve of her mouth spreading out until its fixed in the early stages of a cold, ironic smile.

“I know, I know,” he tells her, grimacing. “Even saying its your fault implies I think it is. I don't though, I promise. We’re the idiots here. Stupid fucking plan if we didn't have contingencies, hell, didn’t really know what you’d be like to begin with. Really professional fucking kidnappers we are.”

Laurel’s lips pull further, just a millimeter or so, so quickly, so subtly he almost misses it, even after so long studying the lines, the microscopic shifts in her face.

“Don't have to say ‘I told you so,’” Frank says, grimace turning into his own ironic smile. “Trust me, I know. Whether those guys upstairs do, well…” he shrugs, trailing off, a stupid, useless sheepish grin sliding across his face before he can corral the muscles to do what their told, to not do anything to antagonize the girl further, like that’s his prime directive now. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am, that someone hired us to do this to you. I’m sorry that my, that the other guy is on some power trip about rules, took it out on you. I can’t change any of that, but I can try and make things better from here on out. If you’ll just let me. That's my offer, ok?”

She stares at him, flatly, expression suddenly shuttered, unreadable, something like caution perhaps the only thing he can discern on her face.

“Right,” he sighs, runs a hand across his beard. “You don't believe me. And why the fuck would you?”

Her eyes slip away from his, slip back to her knees while she curls her body once again around her injured arm, ignoring him completely. Frank wonders for half a moment whether she’s trying to make a point, make a statement about Frank’s ability to help her, to make anything in her life better, decides that's probably not true, but he’s taken the point anyway.

He sighs. “Any way you gonna be able to sleep? I can’t get you anything stronger till my buddy relieves me, takes over watching you. But its been over twenty four hours and I bet you’re exhausted and I know you’d rather be asleep with me here.”

Her eyes slip closed, just for a moment and she sighs, heavy, a long drawn out exhale.

“Don't have to,” he tells her. “Just an offer. But I’ll just sit here and read, wake you up before shift change, ok?”

Laurel opens her eyes, meets his, something softening in her expression, the blue of her eyes overwhelming the churning grey, sunlight chasing the clouds away.

“It’ll be like a bedtime story,” he tells her, grinning crookedly, teasing. “If bedtime stories were about genocides.”

She makes a little sound, huffing, almost like a laugh, and her eyes begin to roll before she catches herself, stops, and smooths her expression into blankness, carefully neutral, like she can’t allow herself to think Frank is funny, can’t allow herself to soften, even a degree towards him, ease the hatred in her heart.

“Sound like a plan?” he asks rhetorically, because its not like Laurel really has a choice, not like she believes he’ll change his plan for her. “And if I finish this one, I bought a couple more books to help pass the time.”

Laurel looks past him, eyes flicking to the side where he’s kept his collection of food and water bottles, like she can see the titles, asses his choices.

“Seriously,” he continues. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman if you fall asleep, might even take my own nap.”

He shrugs when her expression fails to change, when she refuses to give him any indication she’s going to take him up on the offer. “Well, that's alright,” he tells her. “Offer still stands. Take me up on it anytime.”

He sits back down against the wall, cracks the book open again, begins reading, no longer even bothering to watch Laurel, knowing what he’ll see, knowing she’ll remain silent, remain blank faced and stoic, refusing to give him anything, give into any inclination for softness, for acceptance of her fate. 

He reads through one chapter, then two, finally looks up, too curious, too used to watching Laurel, watching her face, her eyes, her expression, unwilling to break his pattern, go for too long without looking back at her. He’s drawn to her, like his mind’s been tied on a chain that leads straight to her, like she’s North on every compass in his mind, like after so long spent watching her, reading her so closely, he’s simply accepted her as a part of himself. He can’t look away, can’t back away from this strange, scared girl with the sharp eyes, the sharp jaw. He’s not sure he even wants to.

She’s slumped forward, body bowed at the waist, hair hanging across her face like a dark curtain. Asleep, he thinks at first, feels a brief surge of something like pride, something like relief that she’s finally relaxed the iron grip she’s had on her emotions, on her mind, finally relaxed enough that sleep has come to her.

And then he realizes his mistake, realizes she’s bluffing him. He’s spent enough time reading her body, the sound of her breath, the play of her muscles that he recognizes her breath comes too fast for sleep, that there’s a shift of her shoulders, her arms, subtle, almost delicate, but there all the same. Arms, he realizes too late, arms, stomach dropping until he feels cold, feels sick, he never secured her injured wrist again before he went back to reading and now, now Laurel’s working the ties at her arms, he knows that's what she’s doing. He knows what she’s doing but he has no idea how close she is to achieving that aim, how close she is to freeing herself, to knocking him over the head or trying to escape, something that will wind up very, very bad for him, for her too.

“Hey,” he snaps. “Laurel.”

She freezes, slowly looks up, raises her eyes to him, furious and blazing with anger, teeth bared to him.

“The fuck,” he growls at her, rising to his feet, stalking towards her, furious that she’s repaid his kindness, repaid his concern, his efforts with this, with an attempt at escape the second he dropped his guard, turned his back. “Seriously?”

She just continues to glare, teeth sharp and glinting, staring through him like she wants to pierce straight through him, rip him in half.

He sighs, scrubs a hand through his hair, clenches his fingers into fists, burning with anger. He wants to hit something, not her, never her, but he wants to hit something, rip something apart just as throughly as she wants to rip him apart, wants to kick himself for trusting the girl, allowing himself to think that they’d reached some kind of understanding, agreement, for being so fucking naïve as to think she was willing to trust the man who kidnapped her. “Did you really just blow my fucking kindness? On a goddamn half baked escape attempt?”

He stalks around behind her, pulls at the tie around her wrist, inspecting its soundness. She’s worn it down a bit, rubbed it ragged and worn against the chair, rubbed a little groove into the cheap wood of the chair. She’s barely done any damage, barely made any headway in slicing through the thick plastic of the zip tie, barely made more than a little chip in the chair, but he knows that's what she’s been doing, and that's what makes the anger churn in his chest, burn across his throat.

But more than that, he can tell what she’s been doing with her free arm, even with her broken wrist screaming in pain. She’s been working at one of the slats of the chair back, trying to work it loose from the seat, trying to work it free so she can slip the zip tie around the slat, free her hands from being held against the chair. He can see by the scrapes against the wood of the seat what she’s been doing, the little grooves, the little chips she’s gouged from the wood, again, nothing dangerous, nothing that compromises the integrity of the chair to continue to hold her, but he can tell her efforts nonetheless, read her intentions from the wood itself.

He wonders at the pain she must have been in, because the slats are heavy, and they’re held tightly into place and any efforts to move them, dislodge them must have sliced through her mind like a shot. From his position behind her Frank can’t see her face, but he does see the beading of sweat along the angle of her neck, can hear the shallowness of her breathing, the tremble in her broken hand, from her fingertips to her shoulder, marvels again at the almost limitless caches of strength, of hard, unyielding discipline she summons up from somewhere, how she forces herself to ignore what is easy, what is smart, what is painless and instead moves forward with things that will only cause her pain.

He’s impressed, has to admit it to himself, even though he’s burning through with anger. He’s impressed with how thoroughly she conned him, made Frank believe that she was accepting her fate, angry and bitter and childishly fighting a futile already lost battle against him, that she’d given up any intention of waging a real battle. But well, she showed him and if he wasn’t so pissed, at her, at himself, at the whole goddamn situation, wasn’t so thoroughly embarrassed, he’d be damn impressed at her foresight, at her ability to see the long game, work the angles for a bigger payoff later. Hell, if he had her on his crew, they’d be a damn formidable criminal enterprise, he thinks.

She waited until Frank’s guard was down before trying anything, until he had naively convinced himself he knew her, knew how she'd react, deal with the situation, until he felt confident he knew her face, her body, that she’d been convinced of the inevitability of her imprisonment. But well, he was thoroughly, completely wrong, conned by her silence which he took for childish defiance, by the blank mask of her expression, convinced himself that the anger behind her eyes meant one thing, when it clearly meant another, clearly meant she was plotting, still, lying in wait until the ideal time to strike, to ambush him and free herself. 

She was using silence as a weapon, Frank thinks suddenly, not as a shield, though its only now he can see the difference, now that an unexpected glance up exposed her efforts at the zip ties, at the chair. She’s a strange silent little thing, fierce and dangerous in a way that is wholly unexpected, subtle and methodical in her thoughts, her actions even as he can see the burning rage and pain marring her face. He doesn't know what to think of her anymore, other than to be angry, and impressed and drawn, still, always, to her, wanting to know more, wanting to read the thoughts and signals and emotions that churn behind her eyes.

Frank sighs, wraps a second tie around her right wrist, threads it through the tie hooking her to the chair, zips it tight, tight enough he know it will be uncomfortable again, but still, not tight enough it will cut into her skin, will slice against her already raw wrist. He’s not willing to do that, not yet, not willing to cause her any pain he can avoid it.

“Gimme your other arm,” he growls, voice a low rumble near her neck. He can see Laurel’s shiver, the little tremble that arcs through her at his words. There’s a long moment that stretches, glinting and golden, between them while he wonders, stomach tilting wildly, if she’s going to resist him, defy his commands, force him to force her to comply. He doesn't want to, tries to think, frantically of anyway to avoid doing what he knows he will have to if she forces the issue, forces him to make a choice as to whether to let her arm remain free or restrain her again, mete out some punishment for her defiance. 

But then Laurel sighs, rolls her shoulders again and her left arm slips back against the bars of the chair, allows him, arm limp and unresisting, to slip another tie around her wrist. She stiffens, flinches, but allows him to take her arm, allows him to secure her broken wrist, again, with a zip tie, only a sharp, quick intake of breath suggesting she’s anything other than indifferent to what’s happening.

“You just couldn't resist could you?” he asks her, voice low and rough though Frank forces his touch to be as gentle as possible, as light, tries to keep from causing her any further pain, even in his anger. He’s angry, so damn angry he can barely see straight, angry at her, angry at himself, and yet, and yet, he doesn't want to take that anger out on her, doesn't want to hurt her, make her suffer for making him look like a fool. He gets it, honestly, he does, why she would take the opening he stupidly gave her, try to mount her own damn rescue, get herself out of this shitty situation, filled with pain and fear and uncertainty. He’s still fucking pissed, but he does get it, tries to be as gentle as possible when he reties her wrist because as angry as he is, Frank knows he’d’ve done the same damn thing given half a chance.

He zips the tie as tight as he can without cutting into her skin, without causing her any additional pain, trying to be gentle, trying to prove that he’s someone she can trust, who won’t lash out at her when he doesn't have to, when she hasn't actually don’t anything to jeopardize his efforts, won’t punish her just to cause her pain.

“I’m not gonna uncuff you anymore now,” he tells her, testing the zip ties, tugging against the plastic, feeling what little give there is, ensuring her bonds are secure. Satisfied, he stands, comes around to face her again. He sees the flinch in her gaze, the shields that slam in front of her eyes, trying to distance herself from the pain she knows is coming. “But that’s it. I’m not gonna do anything else.”

Laurel looks at him warily, like a cornered animal, the whites of her eyes swallowing everything else, her body held stiff and rigid like she can withstand the force of the blows she thinks Frank will deliver.

“I promise,” he tells her, voice low and ragged with the effort it takes him to sound sincere, to convey the depth of his assurance to her, the fullness of his promise. “I’m not gonna hurt you just cause you tried something. Just don’t try it again, ok? I don’t wanna have to do something shitty.”

Laurel sucks in a long breath, lets it out in a slow, drawn out exhale. “Something shitty?” she asks, voice rough with lack of use, low and rumbling as speech wakes again within her, the long slow tremors preceding an earthquake, pebbles tumbling down a hill. It catches Frank off guard, startles him at the sound of her voice after so long in silence. He’d almost forgotten she had the power of speech at all and there’s a little hiccuping shot of surprise moving through his chest, down his arms to his fingers. But when she speaks, her voice is tight with furious, blinding anger, flashing and sharp and cutting.“You’ve already done something shitty. Every single goddamn moment I’m here, you’re doing something shitty. Don’t fucking kid yourself about who you are, about what you're doing.”

“Hey,” he tries, as she pitches forward again, strains against the zip ties keeping her against the chair, teeth bared. “I’m trying to make this easy. I’m trying to make this easy for you.”

“Right,” she says sarcastically, crackling with rage, suddenly sitting up straight, tall and defiant, no longer leaning forward like she wants to snap her bonds, wants to cause him all the pain she’s been subjected to, turn it back around on him, hurt Frank as she’s been hurt. No, she leans back, spine straight and her chin jutting, raised in defiance. She looks regal, Frank thinks suddenly, jarringly, looks like a fucking queen sitting in the rickety wooden chair like a throne, her chin lifted haughtily, her eyes cold. She looks like a queen, even tied to a goddamn chair, her wrist broken and her eyes bruised and her lips cracked with thirst, she looks like she rules over all her eyes touch, her body snapping with power, with the iron of her will.

“Our fucking truce, the armistice. An armistice, asshole, is a temporary agreement for the cessation of hostilities. Its not a fucking peace treaty,” she sneers, voice low and bladed, a dangerous snarl. “And its definitely not a surrender.”


	8. Chapter 8

They stare at each other across the wide distance of the room, time stretching out like an elastic band, silent and tense, like the two of them are perched on the edge of a knife blade, waiting for the fall, waiting for the cut.

He doesn’t know how long it lasts, the two of them regarding each other silently in the cold basement, the blue of his eyes fixed on the blue of hers. Her scowl cuts sharp lines across her face and her jaw is clamped shut, tight, determined not to speak again, he thinks, after her slip up, after her vicious outburst. Frank doesn’t think he should be quite so disappointed, quite so disheartened at the certainty he’s not going to get another word out of her.

But he is, disappointed not so much that he knows she won’t speak to him again, but that he’s not going to get anymore from her, that whatever brief understanding had passed between them has been snapped, shattered and he won’t be getting it back, she’s pressed the doors closed to him, locked it tight and won’t let him through again.

He wonders though, if it was a true slip up on Laurel’s part or a necessary diversion, another bluff to get him to drop his guard so she could attempt to escape. He’s not sure, isn’t even sure he wants to know the answer.

“What did you really hope to accomplish?” he asks finally. “You had to know there was no way I wasn’t going to notice what you were doing.”

He expects a shrug from her, maybe a little lift to her eyebrows, gets nothing in return, just a flat blank stare.

“Oh come on,” he scoffs. “You barely made a dent. You were gonna be working for days. Or until someone realized your hand wasn’t cuffed. Which would’ve happened way before your hand got free.”

There’s a slight pull at the corners of her mouth, finally, finally something, like she wants to challenge him, wants to counter his statements with one of her own but resists. He knows she’s right of course, she was making some damn good headway, slowly, but doing some damage against the chair slats.

“And I bet that fucked up your hand pretty good, huh?” he asks. “Working at that chair. More than aspirin can help with.”

Again, there’s a little tightening around the corners of her eyes, near the lines of her jaw, like she wants to say something wants to convey something to him but resists, fights off the urge.

“Why’d you take the risk?” he muses. “Just to see if you could? Because you’d feel guilty if you didn’t, like you hadn't fought hard enough?”

He knows it’s the wrong statement the instant the words leave his mouth, sees something like rage bubbling up behind her eyes, the creeping rush of a volcano, burning through everything in its path.

“You really thought you’d get anywhere with it?” he continues, an edge of mocking whispering across his voice because well, she’s tried to play him for a fool and he’s not such a good man that he can overlook that, pretend that he’s not angry at her, not willing to take the cheap shots she gives him in order to hurt her just a little bit, make her regret her decision to try and play him. “You really thought I was that fucking stupid? Or that I trusted you further than I could spit?”

He leans back, arms crossed over his chest, fixes her with another mocking grin. “I know I may look like an idiot, but I’m not quite that stupid.”

There’s a slight lift to her eyebrow, subtle, so quickly he’d have missed it if he blinked, so quickly he’d’ve missed it if he hadn’t been watching for it, expecting it.

“Oh, c’mon,” he tells her, rolling his eyes with a little scoff. “You really gonna go for the low hanging fruit?”

She just meets his gaze, stares through him, deadpan, until he feels a laugh bubble out of him, a long slow chuckle.

“I can’t say I know a damn thing about you,” he says, trying to keep any more laughter out of his voice. “But I do know you’re funny.”

She sneers, settles back heavy against the slats of the chair, challenge in her eyes. And Frank, Frank continues to watch her, continues to memorize the shifting lines of her body, subtle play of muscles as her expression changes.

“Well,” he continues with a little shrug. “I’m gonna go back to reading unless you stop me.”

He gets no response and so he picks up the book again, raises it so that Laurel can see, offers her an out if she wants to take it, knowing she won’t. “I think you like it,” he tells her, smirking. “Secretly, you like the book, or like my reading voice, something. I know its true.”

He chuckles again, quick and flashing, before he picks the book up, begins reading again, watching as Laurel’s breath evens out, slows as he reads, as he shifts his focus from her to the book, watches her shoulders slump, relax, tension sliding off her like raindrops.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't point it out, just continues to let her body unfurl as he reads, as they both focus on Frank’s voice, on the novel, the plot of things far removed from the chilly basement, from zip ties and stale pizza and broken wrists.  
He’s close to the end of the book, expects it won’t take him more than an hour or so to finish up, worries idly about whether he’ll be able to keep Laurel interested, focused on a second novel. He knows she’s paying attention, he can see the shifts in her face as he reads to her, the subtle changes taking place under her skin that show him, as good as if she’d said it, that she’s paying attention, that she’s reacting to the plot, drawn in almost against her will.

Except then Frank glances up again, just raises his eyes an inch or two to watch Laurel and she’s asleep. Truly, genuinely, he thinks, asleep. Not feigning sleep so that she can get Frank’s guard down, not closing her eyes against the constant harsh light of the basement, not unconscious. No, Frank decides as he watches the long, creeping arc of her breaths, the slow rise and fall of her chest, the limpness in her body, slumped forward like her bones, her blood have been removed, leaving only an empty shell of a girl, leaving only the skin of this strange, sharp girl, a human shedding its skin like a snake.

Her hair hangs down across her face so that Frank’s unable to see her eyes but he knows, even so, that she’s not bluffing, that she’s truly and genuinely asleep. He can’t see any movement from her body other than the gentle roll of her chest, her shoulders as she breathes, knows its not something she’s faking. So he closes the book, tries not to think too hard about why a grin is cracking across his face, wide and full, why there’s a little catch of something like pleasure, like pride in the pit of his stomach, why he wants, for no reason Frank can discern, for no reason he wants to think about too closely, to brush the hair away from her face, let his hand slip against the sharp lines of her cheekbones.

Instead he just shifts until he can settle himself against the floor, laid out flat against the concrete, his eyes, always, towards the girl. He wants to go to sleep, probably would’ve let himself relax, close his eyes if she hadn’t just tried to pull off a pretty ham fisted escape attempt, unwilling to let his guard down now, so soon after she played him for a fool. He doesn't think this is the same thing, thinks she’s truly just fallen asleep, the exhaustion and pain and terror of the past 36 hours finally just overwhelming her brain, overwhelming her resistance, her defenses, no longer allowing the cold iron of her mind to override the needs of her body, finally succumbing to the things she needs, to the base cravings of her body; water, food and sleep.

Even so, even though he knows it's only that her body has simply run out of energy, strength, no longer even coasting on fumes, it still gives him a little moment of something like pleasure that immediately turns sour in his mouth, shot through with guilt and shame and taking away any pride in his ability to be the kidnapper that terrifies her least, to be the one in place when her body finally gives out, the fear no longer powerful enough to override her need for the comfort of oblivion. Anything he feels, any moments when he feels like anything other than a giant fucking asshole shouldn't be trusted, Frank thinks, because that is what he is, no matter what else comes, he is and will remain a giant fucking asshole for the rest of his life. A selfish, venal creature, concerned only with money, with taking the easy way out and following orders and no matter what else he does, he will still be a man who tied a child to a chair, let her nose, her fingers, her arm be broken, told her she couldn't go home again, a man who tried to convince himself that he could get her to like him, smile and bribe and charm his way into getting her to think of him as anything other than the monster he is.

He’s worse than Martin, Frank decides with another guilty twist to his gut, because at least Martin is clear about who he is, what he is. At least Martin makes no effort to conceal the violence, the pain inside him. Frank, well, Frank’s the wolf in sheep’s clothing, or worse than that, a wolf who tries to convince himself he’s a sheep moments before he devours one. Frank is trying to assure himself he’s not a bad man, trying to get the girl to absolve him of his sins, tell him he’s not a monster, all while he has her tied to a chair, her arm broken and her body split through with thirst, with exhaustion.

Frank is pathetic, that’s what he is, and trying to convince himself that the girl thinks he’s a decent enough kidnapper that she can sleep in his presence is ignoring the truth of things, obscuring reality so thoroughly it looks more like a dream than anything else. He may be the least shitty kidnapper, but Frank is still, at his heart, a kidnapper, still a man who causes nothing but pain and fear. And nothing he ever does will change that, will wash away the stain of that sin.

But there’s not a damn thing he can do about that, nothing can change who he is, what he’s done. The only thing he can do is let her sleep, give her what tiny comforts, what tiny kindnesses are available to her, try to protect her as best he can from the worst of what he knows could be coming to her. That’s all he can do, keep silent about Laurel's thwarted escape attempt, make sure she's awake before Chris comes back down, make sure he feeds her again if she wants it, takes her to the can so she doesn't have Chris watching her. He can’t protect her, not really, but he’ll do the best he can, in the minuscule ways he’s able.

He lets her sleep, can’t do anything else, just lays out on his back and turns his head to watch Laurel, watch her sleep, lets his mind go blank and empty, a technique he perfected in his years in juvie, just letting himself drift as the minutes tick by, as time ticks forward.

He checks his watch, a little more than two hours until he’s due to be relieved by Chris, figures he’ll let her sleep until there’s about half an hour left, give her as long as possible to stay asleep, stay ignorant of the terrible things that swirl around her, allow her a brief moment of respite, relief from the pain, the terror, the terrible things terrible men do to her.

He’s contemplating waking her again when Laurel’s body begins to tremble, twitch, sharp little movements that tug at her arms, her neck, her ankles like shocks being applied to her limbs, like she’s being Tased again. Frank grimaces, scowls, because for all that he’s done it, for all that he’s caused her hurt in the past day and a half, he hates to see her in pain, hates to see her unhappy, something hard and solid and barbed settling at the back of his throat. A little cry, high and breathy and sharp tumbles from her lips as Laurel’s body jerks again, harshly, like she’s a puppet on strings.

“Laurel,” he calls out softly, as gently as he can, hoping that she remains asleep, hoping he can soothe her back into quiet, into calm. “Laurel, hey, its ok.”

She cries out again, sharp, scared and her body jerks to the side, pulling harshly at the restraints on her wrists, listing dangerously.

“Laurel,” he says again, a little louder, though he still tries to keep his voice soft, kind, not to make her nightmare worse, not to increase the fear churning through her mind. He wonders what she dreams of; men with shadowed faces and lightening in their hands, or of her fingers snapping like twigs, of truces that will never be truces. “You’re ok, there’s nothing wrong.”

She whimpers again, softer now, but her body goes still, limp again, the sudden tension draining from her body.

He lets her sleep longer, longer than he really intended, longer than he thinks is really safe, pushing hard against he time for Chris to come and take over. But he wants to give her what he can, what pathetic scraps he can, hopes to give her any kind of comfort in this hell she’s been dragged to. But eventually he has to wake her, knows she won’t want to remain asleep while Chris comes down, can sense the innate need in her to know, to be aware of everything that happens around her.

“Hey Laurel,” he says again, pushing himself upright until he’s sitting again. “Hey.”

He gets no reaction from her, stands instead and approaches her slowly.

“Laurel,” he repeats, hand feather light against her shoulder. “Gotta wake up, k.”

She jerks away from his touch, a sharp, angry noise cutting through the silence of the basement, eyes snapping open, clear and cold and blue. She stares up at him through narrowed eyes, blinks slowly until recognition dawns on her, slow understanding filling her gaze as her eyes narrow, become an angry glare, as her body goes stiff, tense and terrified.

“Hey, gotta wake up,” he tells her, taking a long step back away from her, giving her as much distance as he can, as much space to come back to herself, to come to terms with having fallen asleep, let her guard down, even for quick seconds. “My buddy’ll be coming down in a few minutes. Figured you’d want to be awake for that.”

She watches him out of the corner of her eye, wary and tense, clenching her jaw against a wide, bracing yawn.

“You need to piss or anything?” he asks. “Hungry?”

He doesn't really expect to get a response, isn’t surprised when he doesn't, when her face remains blank and shuttered.

Frank sighs, shrugs. “No skin off my nose,” he tells her. “But I figured you might want to avoid my friend watching you piss. But hey, no judgement if you're into that.”

Laurel scowls, makes a low, grating noise deep in her throat like a scoff but otherwise offers Frank no reaction, no indication of whether she wants to take him up on the offer or not.

She makes a small hum in the back of her throat, so quiet that Frank wonders if he just imagined it. He is struck suddenly, belatedly, by how clearly Laurel speaks in silences, in stillness more than in anything approaching words. And he think for the first, but certainly not the last time, that he could, given half the chance, spend the rest of his life decoding her, translating her silences, her body. He wants to write dissertations, sonnets, novels on her eyes, her lips, her collarbones, her fingers. He wants to bury himself in the minutiae of her sighs, her laughs, her pauses until he knows her like he knows his own breath. But he knows immediately how futile that will be, knows that there are no words in a language he understands for the things she is, no synonyms, nothing. Like trying to describe the color blue to a blind man.

“C’mon,” he urges, forcing a teasing smirk onto his face, one that doesn't quite reach his eyes. “It’ll give you another opportunity to try and escape.”

Her lips twist again, scowling, but her eyes are cold and expressionless.

Frank shrugs. “How bout food?” he urges. “Or some more water? Or are you trying to kill yourself again?”

He sees her teeth sink into her lower lip, harshly, sees the worry, the battle brewing behind her eyes as she fights with herself over what to do, what choice to make. There’s anger there, or something like it, though for the first time Frank suspects that its not directed at him, directed outward but instead turned inward on herself, a crushing kind of frustrated anger that Laurel finds herself tempted, drawn to the idea of food, of water, of giving up, giving in. He thinks she’s tired of fighting, tired of resisting, of denying herself the things she wants in order to prove some point to Frank, to herself, to her father, perhaps, or maybe even to the world itself. He’s not sure but he knows she’s upset, torn about what to do, how to proceed forward, how to deal with this new reality of zip ties and lurking, dangerous men and waiting, waiting for a reprieve, a salvation that may never arrive.

Finally she sighs, long and slow and when Frank meets her eyes again they’re clear, none of the churning anger lingering in her gaze.

She simply holds his stare and nods, once.

“I dunno what that means,” he tells her sheepishly, rocking back on his heels, feeling bad, feeling guilty and pathetic that he can’t just read her mind, know what she wants, know exactly what that nod means. He thinks that with this girl, this strange, sharp creature, every victory he gets sends him two steps backwards. Laurel finally conquers something inside herself, the little voice screaming at her to resist, to remain stone, to not give Frank any sliver of victory, of compromise and gives him a nod, an agreement of some kind and he has no idea what it means, couldn't say whether she was agreeing to the bathroom, to food or the whole shebang. And not knowing, not understanding, well, Frank knows it will set him back, again, with the girl, because she will not give him more, will not allow herself to do more than nod, almost imperceptibly because to do more would be to surrender more of herself than she’s willing. Frank knows this, on an almost instinctive level, knows that Laurel will not, can not do more than nod, cannot let herself give up that ground to Frank, cede that space to Frank, her enemy. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know. Is that for food, water, all of the above?”

She gives him a thin smile, twisting and mocking, and a little gesture that he thinks would have been a shrug were here arms not pinioned behind her back.

Frank hums, grins indulgently. “Well, let's try door number three then. I’ll offer and you can take it or leave it, how’s that.”

The girl simply stares back and Frank decides he’s made the right choice, may have made it another step forward through the minefield of this girl’s mind.

“Gotta be quick about it though,” he tells her. “It’s almost time for my buddy to come down. I dunno if he’ll be bringing food, but I got some chips and a Snickers if you want em. I’ll try to bring something a little more substantial, something better than pizza next time.”

He goes around to the back of her chair, sinks into a crouch, inspects the ties against her wrists. They still seem sound, though he’s not sure how to restrain her if he’s gonna take her to the can. He knows zip ties are easy to break if you tie someone’s hands in front of them, but he’s pretty sure that’s how its gonna have to be for her to get anything done in the bathroom, decides he’s probably just going to have to take the risk. And hell, he doesn't really think she can lift the cover of the toilet tank with just one functioning arm, figures there’s nothing else she’ll be able to clock him with that’ll hurt much.

“What do you like?” he asks her then as he cuts the tie threaded through the chair slats, holding her wrists in place, slices through the zip ties around her ankles. He tries not to think about her ankles, the sharp red lines cut across the skin, ragged and raw and broken “Burgers? Chinese? Want me to track you down a salad or something?”

He can see her eyes swing to him, glance over her shoulder, mocking but not angry As she pins him in place with the force of her stare.

“Stand up,” he tells her, tugging at her uninjured wrist. “I’m gonna tie your hands in front. Just for now.”

Laurel complies, turns obediently to face him, the chair a vast echoing distance between them, extends her arms after a long moment spent, he thinks, studying his face, the lines around his eyes, his mouth, spent studying the expression on his face, her head tilted just fractionally to the side as though she’s listening to all the things Frank can’t, or won’t, say.

“I’m not saying that just cause you're a girl, or a teenage girl or whatever,” he continues as he threads a third zip tie between the two on her wrists, pulls it as tight as it can go so there’s only an inch or two of distance between her palms. “Sometimes you just need something a little healthier than a burger and fries.”

There’s a low noise from Laurel’s throat, the beginnings of a scoff, Frank thinks, or maybe a mocking laugh and he catches the quick lift to her eyebrows before she smothers the look down, kills it in its cradle.

“What?” he asks her, grinning despite himself because this is as close to a good place, as close to joking as he thinks he and Laurel may ever get and he’s going to claim whatever little victories he gives him. “You making fun of me for trying to eat healthy. You can’t get a baller six pack like mine on fast food.”

Again, that mocking look passes across her eyes and Frank feels a sharp laugh tumble out of him. “Look at you, Ms. Third wave feminism,” he chuckles, catching her elbow so he can turn her around again, face her away from him so he can keep his eyes on her while they walk the few feet to the bathroom. “Objectifying me like I’m a piece of meat.”

One of her shoulders hitches, only one, a half shrug like she can’t be bothered to go for the full effect and he sees the corner of her mouth pull, not a smile, not a frown, just a little tug at the edge of her lips.

“You’re lucky I’m a gentleman,” he tells her, fingers pressing against he small of her back so she steps forward, Frank’s hand at her elbow steering her towards the bathroom. “Otherwise I’d probably be very hurt.”

He regrets it the instant he speaks, can feel the sudden tension in her limbs, can feel the way she freezes, just for an instant, before she’s moving again, just a little hitch in the smoothness of her gait, like a hiccup, like maybe she caught her toe on the concrete, stumbled slightly. He could write it off as any of those things, but he won’t, because Frank hates lying to himself, won’t look away from the ugly truth of it. 

No, she froze because of him, his words and nothing else, he knows that. He hurts her, even when he’s trying not to, even when he thinks everything is good, or as good as its ever going to get between them, well, even then he’s hurting her, even when he doesn't know, or can’t recognize it, he is. Every moment with him is torture for her, because she didn’t choose it, never wanted it. Every moment with him is one moment she’s not home, one more moment she’s kidnapped, her arm and fingers and nose snapped, one more moment she spends in fear and uncertainty and pain. He’s hurting her and anything she does, nothing she does, can compare to how he’s hurting her with every breath he takes.

“Sorry,” he mumbles quickly, glancing away from her, embarrassed, ashamed. “Sorry, I didn't mean that.”

She says nothing, worse than accusing him, worse than if she’d turned around and snapped at him, glared at him, she just stiffens, flinches like she’s been struck but sucks in a breath, keeps going, keeps moving forward.

He wants to tug at her arm, wants to force her to pause, turn around and face him and listen to him, listen to him explain. Frank resists, stops himself just in time, swallows down whatever impulse, whatever stupid compulsion urges him to speak.

He can’t do that, can’t force more on her against her will, can’t force more violence on her, not now, not ever. He’s already done so much violence against her that he can’t bring himself to do more. If she wants to listen to him, wants to hear his apology, believe that he’s sincere, well, that’s her choice and Frank is not going to demand she listen to him, force her beyond what he has to in order to get his payout.

Laurel pushes the bathroom door open with her bound hands, turns to face him, eyebrow cocked.

“Yeah,” he tells her in answer to her silent question. “Leave the door open, but I’ll turn my back, won’t go in with you. Just don’t fucking try anything.”

She looks straight through him, derisive and expressionless.

Frank scrubs a hand across his face, tries not to roll his eyes. “Not saying you’re gonna,” he shrugs. “But I gotta give you the warning.”

She continues to stare through him, scowling, until it finally dawns on him what Laurel wants and he turns, sheepish. “Right,” he says over his shoulder. “Sorry.”

She doesn't try anything, thankfully, eventually emerges from the bathroom, taps Frank on the shoulder, eyes hard but her body loose, relaxed in a way he’s not sure he’s seen from her before.

“You want food?” he asks her. “Anything to drink while we’re waiting for my relief?”

She drops her chin just an inch or so, stares through him like he’s an idiot.

He nods, understanding. “One question at a time, I know,” he mutters. “You know, this could all be solved if you'd just speak, you know, let me know what you want.”

He doesn't expect a response, doesn't get one. “Fine,” he sighs. “Food?”

Laurel stares through him, a ‘no’ Frank thinks.

“Ok, cool,” he nods. “How bout something to drink?”

She blinks and her head inclines a degree or two. A ‘yes’ then, he decides.

He jerks his head back towards the chair. “C’mon. Sit back down and I’ll go through your choices.”

Laurel goes dutifully, giving him a long, mulish look as she passes. She gets to the chair, stops and turns and stares at him.

“You gotta,” he tells her, crossing his arms across his chest, putting distance between them, putting a shield between them before he feels bad, feels guilty about what he’s doing, about how he’s asking her to be complicit in her own kidnapping, in the violence he does to her. “I can’t leave you untied.”

She gives him a look, waiting, prompting, like she doesn't believe him, like she wants to hear his excuse, his justifications.

“I can’t,” he says again scowling at her, at the guilt that churns inside him. “Not with my buddy coming down. Not after you went and tried to escape on me.”

Her mouth twitches but she doesn't move, doesn't flinch from him. He’s not sure what she’s doing, what test she’s presenting him with, not even really sure what his choices are, but he knows it is her who is offering Frank a decision to make just the same as he is offering her one.

“Laurel,” he growls, certain, whatever test she’s giving him, he’s failing, totally, miserably. He has failed every test she’s given him so far, didn’t even realize they were tests until he failed them, until he proved to her, once again, that he was not a good man, that he was capable only of hurting her, that he would never be willing to free her before the money came, that any comfort he gives her is conditional, based solely on her willingness to comply, to be a good, a compliant hostage. And that, he thinks, is one thing Laurel Castillo will never be. “Don’t make me have to be an asshole.”

She stares him down, the chair heavy between them, the weight of just how much of an asshole she thinks he is hanging even heavier.

“Laurel,” he says again, stepping forward, his arms crossed over his chest, trying to force her to see that she can’t stand against him, that acquiescence is her only option. “I know you don’t want to. You don’t have to go on record that you don’t want to get tied up again. But you’re gonna have to.”

She shakes her head, only slightly, almost like a shiver but holds his gaze, both of them refusing to look away, both of them refusing to back down, the blue of her eyes burning through him like fire.

“Do I really have to tell you what’s gonna happen if you’re still untied when my buddy comes back?” he asks, because Laurel’s not dumb, he knows that much, has to be aware of the risk she’s taking, the consequences of not complying. She has to know what will happen if she doesn't follow orders. “It’ll be a lot worse than that wrist.”

Laurel’s jaw tightens, like she’s bracing herself already for what’s coming but doesn't back down. She steps forward slowly, almost like she’s daring Frank to do something, to react, something resembling a smile tracing her lips, a question in her eyes like she’s weighing Frank, judging him, waiting to see his reaction. An ankle hooks around the legs of the chair, mimicking Martin and she pulls forward, sends the chair spilling to the ground with a clatter.

Frank sighs, scrubs a hand across his beard as he glances up towards the ceiling, wonders if anyone upstairs heard the noise, hoping they didn’t, hoping they remain up there until he can convince her to sit back down. He gives her a look, scolding, like she’s a child and he’d disappointed in her, and he is, because she ought to be able to see the long game, see what a disastrous move it is to resist him, now, risk further hurt, further pain with these meaningless rebellions.

When he glances back to her, Laurel is still standing there, jaw still tight, a curious expression on her face. He can see her teeth sunk into her lower lip, eyes narrowed as she blinks, slowly, brows drawn in.

“What?” he asks, picking up the chair and righting it again.

He doesn't expect an answer from her, doesn't get one. Instead she continues to stare at him like he’s some wholly new and strange creature she’s seeing for the first time, scared and fascinated and tentative and awed, like she’s not sure what the animal in front of her is capable of, not sure its not dangerous, violent, but curious to find out, curious to discover.

“It’s your choice,” he tells her, settling himself in the chair instead, leaning back to watch her. “I told you I won’t hurt you unless you do something really stupid, come at me or get a little further in your pathetic escape attempt. But my friends, they’re not gonna be so nice.”

“So,” he continues with a little shrug Laurel narrows her eyes at. “You can stay like this all you want, doesn't bother me, really, you're not going anywhere. Its just a stupid thing to do. I won’t be able to protect you from them, and I’m not going to. Because I warned you, and you didn’t listen.”

She holds his gaze for long moments, until Frank can almost believe he sees the start of something thawing in them, something not quite soft, probably never truly soft in this strange, sharp girl, but something like a thaw, an easing in her eyes, like she’s letting go of a burden she’s held for too long, her arms trembling and her breath weak. Again, Frank thinks, a test, one he didn’t know he was taking, one he must have failed again. Eventually she turns away from the chair, giving it a last derisive look, hateful and hated.

“Alright,” Frank says like a sigh. “Your choice.”

There's a pleased little smile, almost a smirk, that burns behind her eyes, burns with a fire so cold Frank finds himself glancing away, unable to meet it head on. And yet, something flits across her face, tugs at the corners of her lips, an expression that's almost childlike, like she was caught off guard by her victory, by the enormity of it.

She smiles then, really, truly, small still, with only the barest hint of teeth, but smiles all the same. Its small and sweet and there’s suddenly none of the anger, the aggression or mocking or cruel victory in the lines of her mouth, just a girl smiling because she wants to. 

Frank’s not ready for it, not expecting it and it bowls him over, crashes against his chest before he can brace for it, a feeling like shock, a feeling like grief, like wanting, stealing his breath and settling deep against his heart. Her smile makes her look her age, small and young and fresh, makes her look innocent in a way nothing else before has. She smiles like spring, cold and biting, but with the promise of something fresh, something alive whispering through it too, the promise not just of warmth but of slow, sticky heat.

Frank wishes he’d never seen her smile, wishes he’d never been given this glimpse of the person she was, the person she might never be again. He wishes only for her to smile again, wants to die with that smile etched behind his eyes because he earned it and she earned it and it was freely given, and her surrendered it to her, the thing that he traded for her smile. He’s not sure he’ll ever see it again, not after she realizes what it cost her.

It’s gone almost as soon as it arrived, lingers there behind her eyes, something that can’t be called soft, more like an easing, more like Laurel removing her armor, tearing down the tallest of her walls, nothing like a surrender, nothing like compliance but an easing, her guard no longer up, her hackles no longer raised. She cannot and will not trust him, Frank knows that much, but perhaps she no longer has to be on alert at every moment, perhaps she knows enough about her enemy to know how and when he will attack, know that it will not come tonight. Its not much, Frank thinks, but it’s the first step. The first toward what, well, that he’s less sure of, but he knows it’s a step he wants to take, wants to see her take, wants to move forward towards that unknown.


	9. Chapter 9

Laurel turns away from him, heads towards his collection of food, soda, books, his stash of things to stave off boredom. She roots through it while Frank’s stomach drops dangerously, like he’s suddenly been flung from a great height, unsure of where the ground, the impact is, as he wonders, desperately, whether he left anything there she could use as a weapon, use against him.

Aside from a soda can, he decides, there’s nothing and even that doesn't make a great weapon, not really. And he’ll notice if she tries to pocket one, she’s got nowhere to stash it in her tiny shorts, her tank top.

“Hey,” he asks, casually, suddenly finding himself trying not to think about tiny shorts, the long expanses of her legs, the long, dangerous inches of skin, the play of sharp muscles across her shoulders, the angles of her collarbones and the vast plains of her throat. “You’re not getting cold down here, are you?”

She looks up, sharply, brows drawn in in confusion, tilts her head at him as though to listen to the things Frank isn’t saying, the thoughts lurking behind his words.

“I can bring you a sweatshirt or something,” he offers, hoping, beyond words, beyond sanity, that she doesn't notice the roughness of his voice, the little catch when he speaks. “Next time I come down. If you’re cold.”

One shoulder juts up, a shrug, and she turns back to the pile of his things, continues to root through it until she emerges with a water bottle held in her good hand, her other, tied together, hanging uselessly beside it.

“Need some help with that?” he asks as she moves the bottle to the crook of her elbow, wedged between her arm and her chest, tries to angle her injured wrist so that she can get her other hand close enough to twist the cap off.

She frowns, grimaces with pain, hisses slightly, but eventually gets her hand close enough that she can get the cap free, take a long swallow, downs nearly half the bottle. She looks up, through her lashes, grins triumphantly, almost proudly at Frank, salutes him with the bottle.

He chuckles, finds himself grinning, unable to help himself. “Course you don’t need any help.”

She grins around the water bottle, raises her eyebrows at him, challenging him to say more. Frank doesn't take the bait, just lets her drink the rest of the bottle with her shackled wrists, awkward and stilted. Every moment of this truce that isn't a truce, every moment where she’s willing to grin at him instead of glare, sneer, is one he’s going to try to preserve, protect, even though he knows they’re nothing more than water droplets held tightly in his cupped hands, the beads always, always slipping through his fingers.

“You need a straw maybe?” he jokes while Laurel glances up, rolls her eyes at him, a smile, he thinks, behind her eyes. “I’m sorry I don’t have any more for you to eat, but chips’ll have to do for now.”

She shrugs, picks up a Snickers from his pile of detritus, rips the bar open with her teeth.

“Smart,” he tells her, continuing his one sided commentary. “Going for the protein.”

Laurel stares at him blankly as she chews at the bar.

“So,” he begins. “You willing to sit down now, get tied back up?”

She just takes a step backwards, eyes suddenly hard again and Frank thinks, knows, he’s pierced whatever strange bubble had surrounded them, shielded them for flashing, fleeting moments, set them two steps backwards again. Any moment Laurel allows herself to forget where she is, who Frank is, is a moment she will punish herself for later, and every moment they spend pretending things are different, that Laurel won’t soon have to have zip ties wrapped around her limbs, is one she will hate herself for later, curse herself for that forgetting, for the weakness in her heart, her mind.

“Alright,” Frank shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

She mirrors his shrug, nothing more, tries not to let him see the anger, the sadness in her eyes, shuttered and distant.

“So,” he continues. “What's your favorite candy bar? Not Snickers, I bet. Butterfinger? Almond Joy?”

She just chews thoughtfully on the Snickers, as though she’s prompting him to continue guessing, wants to keep seeing him be wrong about her, keep proving to them both how little he knows.

But then there’s a creaking above them, the sound of the lock scraping against the wood of the door.

“Sit the fuck down,” he snaps instantly, dread creeping through his chest, settling heavy and roiling in his stomach. “Quick. Or you’re gonna get another finger snapped.”

Laurel blanches, eyes going wide, shot through with terror and he can see her hurt wrist curl against her chest, cradled against her skin by her other arm, her whole body beginning to shake, tremble like all strength has been stolen from her, like she will be blown away, will crumble into dust. Her eyes are wild and he can tell she’s frozen, unsure of where to go, what to do.

“Laurel,” he hisses, voice barely above a whisper. “C’mon, quick. Sit down and I’ll think of something.”

She complies, strangely, dizzyingly, she complies; moves towards Frank like a ghost, her eyes wide and her skin pale and her limbs heavy, drops into the chair with a little sigh of what might be fear. Frank clips the tie holding her wrists in front of her, moves around to the back of the chair while the girl swings her arms around to meet him. As she does they hear the door creak open, hear the scraping of footfalls against the wooden stairs, soft and heavy.

“Don't say anything, don’t do anything,” Frank whispers against her neck as he grasps her good arm, fits a zip tie through the one already around her wrist, brings it close to her injured hand and does the same, careful not to jar it too badly even in his rush. He still hears Laurel’s sharp hiss, the quick intake of her breath, feels the sudden stiffness, the sudden tension in her body like its all she can do to hold herself together, keep her skin, her bones from flying apart. He’s rushing, probably tightens the zip tie too tight, probably forces an uncomfortable angle to her hands between the chair slats, but he can’t care, Laurel can’t care, not when the consequences of her being found untied are probably going to be worse for her, for Frank too.

“Legs now,” he breathes, unsure if she’ll even be able to hear him. “Almost done.”

She pulls her ankles tight against the chair legs, throws a tiny glance over her shoulder at him, pleading, imploring, her eyes wide and blue and filled with a kind of desperate hope, like Frank is the only chance she has. He doesn't know what he’ll do if he fails her, doesn't know what he’ll do if he doesn't.

He loops a tie around her left leg, around the chair leg, zips it tight, does the other on her right leg as they both hear Chris’s footfalls on the concrete floor, heavier, more solid but without the echoing caused by the wooden stairs.

Frank stands, breath heavy, breath quick, as Chris comes into view, his eyebrows pulling in, mouth cut into a frown as though he knows he just missed something, knows he was seconds too late to see something he shouldn’t have, but unsure what, unsure how he knows it.

“Hey,” Frank says, trying to grin, trying to force his expression into something approaching nonchalant, fighting the instinct to run his hand through his beard, knowing that’s something he does when he’s uncomfortable, when he's feeling awkward or angry, a tell that Chris has learned to read.

“Hey,” Chris says slowly, eyes still narrow as he watches Frank, swings his eyes to Laurel to watch her suspiciously. “ _Que paso_?”

Frank shrugs, tries to force himself to relax, can’t keep the tightness from across his shoulders, his neck. “Same as when you last saw me.”

“She eat anything?” Chris asks, sounding bored, the words rote, uninterested in Frank’s answer.

His eyes flick to Laurel, just a little glance but there’s a world of conversation that passes between them. He doesn't know what compels him to lie, doesn't know what comes over him, swings his loyalty for one quick, irrevocable moment to Laurel and not Chris, his partner, his friend for the better part of a decade. But he does, and he knows that nothing, nothing will be the same after that, not between him and Chris, not between him and the girl. Its not, can’t be the desperate, pleading look that still fills the blue of Laurel’s eyes, can’t be the pain and fear that crackles between them, the look she gives him, begging, like he’s the only one that can protect her, save her. He doesn't know whether she’s playing him, whether she’s really as terrified of Chris as her eyes are making it seem. He doesn't know, but he can’t resist her.

“Nah,” Frank tells him. “Still holding out.”

“Water?”

“Not so far,” Frank mutters as guilt settles against his throat like a boot, heavy and choking.

Chris blows out a long slow breath, eyes passing over Laurel, assessing her. “Impressive,” he says, eyebrows jumping. “Any sleep?”

Frank shrugs. “Might’ve,” he says, trying to sound casual, unconcerned. “I wasn't paying much attention.”

Chris’s mouth twists and he lets out a little rumbling growl. “Boss man chewed me out over it when I got back last night. If he asks you, give him a different answer.”

“He gonna make contact soon?” Frank asks, watching how Laurel’s eyes fix on them, regard them with a heavy, pressing weight, body held rigid and waiting, listening to everything said, everything unsaid.

“Think so,” Chris says, though he doesn't look certain at all, doesn't look at all confident that Martin is going to do anything that they expect him to.

“You know when?” Frank asks, because he doesn't want Martin anywhere near Laurel without him there, a fleeting, uncertain protectiveness coming over him, a compulsion he doesn't really understand, to keep her safe, to keep her from more pain.

Chris shrugs, shakes his head slightly.

Frank hums, tries to keep his face blank neutral. “You order dinner yet?”

“Nah, not yet.”

“Want anything in particular?” he asks, grabbing his bag of books, heading towards the stairs.

“Chinese maybe?” Chris suggests. “Burritos? Something easy.”

Frank chuckles. “Something we can get her to eat without much trouble you mean?”

“Exactly that,” the other man grins, throwing a glance over at Laurel, staring straight ahead like she isn’t intently listening to them, to their conversation, judging and calculating every syllable they speak, every pause and laugh.

“I’ll grab something,” Frank says. “Bring it down for you.”

“Cool,” Chris nods. “Thanks.”

He gives a lingering look back at Laurel as he heads towards the stairs, not sure why, not sure what he thinks he hopes to accomplish with it, making sure she’s alright, making sure she knows he’ll do his best to keep her safe, not sure what difference it will make, not sure they both aren't aware of what a lie it is.

* * *

  
When he returns an hour later with burritos, the house is still and quiet, no sign of Martin, no sign of life at all. He shrugs, unlocks the door to the basement and heads down the steps.

Its only then he hears voices, low and tense like a threat.

His steps quicken, the sound exploding through the basement, making sure he makes his presence known, unsure of what he’ll find when he makes it to the bottom of the steps.

He certainly doesn't expect Martin, sitting in a chair across from Laurel, so close their knees nearly brush, the other man leaning forward, practically towering over her, even seated. The girl is pressed against the back of the chair, shoulders rolled back like she wishes she could remove herself further, retreat even further from Martin, slip behind the chair, slip against the chair and vanish. There’s a stiffness to her body that Frank finds himself worrying at, like she’s trying desperately not to move, like every breath sends sharp knives sliding against her body, like nothing she does can ease the hurt in her.

They both look up sharply as Frank comes into view. Chris, standing sullenly against the wall, looks up as well, glances away just as quickly, goes back to staring at his feet, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Frank watches Laurel, watches Martin, notes the anger in their eyes, the rigid steel behind both their gazes. And there, buried deep behind Laurel’s gaze, the dull thrum of pain, like a bass line sounding low and deep, lingering underneath everything else, anchoring whatever strange dance she and Martin are engaged in.

He gives her a look, tries to ask her without speaking if she’s alright, if the other man has done anything further to hurt her; curses himself for not having the same skills at silence that Laurel does, the same ability to communicate so much without words, entire paragraphs, hold a conversation with only the tilt of her eyebrow, a quirking of her lips. She refuses to meet his eyes, looks past him as though he’s melted into the wall, as though he’s become a ghost in the hour he’s been gone.

“I’ve got dinner,” Frank says lamely when neither of them look away.

“Fantastic,” Martin tells him, eyes flinty, sounding like it’s the exact opposite of fantastic that Frank is there, has the bag of burritos clutched in his hand. Laurel’s eyes track to Martin, watches him as he addresses Frank, watches his body, his posture, hears the things shifting underneath his words. Whatever has been going on, Frank is smart enough to see that none of its been good, that Laurel still treats Martin like a large, dangerous animal, cautious and wary and with an expectation of pain, of disaster hanging over her. If she can avoid it, she looks at him only out of the corner of her eye, like any more attention will draw his gaze, his fury, will invite disaster in. She may not be entirely wrong, Frank thinks.

“What's going on?” Frank asks, both of them, and Chris too, knows that none of them is likely to be honest with him about anything that’s been occurring in this basement, but knowing that something serious, something dangerous has been brewing down here, under the earth.

“We’re about to have a conversation with Ms. Castillo’s father I think,” Martin tells him smoothly, his eyes already back on

Laurel, a small smile playing around his lips, nearly a smirk.

Frank hums, arms crossing over his chest before he can stifle the motion. “Sounds fun.”

“You're welcome to stay and listen,” Martin tells him indulgently.

“Sure,” he growls, sensing the threat bubbling just below the surface of Martin’s words, still water nearing the boiling point.

The other man smiles, like a grimace, his teeth like knives as he pulls out his phone. “We were just having a discussion about

Laurel’s role in all this. The things she needs to say to her father.”

“Good luck,” Frank says, trying to keep himself from sounding too sarcastic, too doubtful that Laurel will do anything that approaches complying with any request Martin makes. She’s scared of him, that much is clear, but, well, Laurel’s a stubborn little thing, a fierce creature, even in the face of her fear, willing to run headlong into disaster rather than show any fear, any weakness, allow it to consume her.

Martin gives Frank another thin, stiff smile, turns his attention to Laurel. “Now,” he tells her. “Lets see what your father has to say about where you’ve wound up.”

He slides open his phone, presses a few buttons and suddenly the sound of an ringing line echoes through the basement.

It rings twice, and then suddenly there’s a voice crackling over the other end, sharp and with just the barest hint of an accent, shot through with worry, with fear.

“Laurel?” the voice asks, cracking with something like grief, like terror and hope rolled into one dangerous mixture. “ _Mija_ , is that you?”

The girl’s mouth parts and she pitches forward, straining against the bonds on her wrists, hope and wanting and sorrow etching sharp lines across her face, a sound like a sob slipping from her lips before she clamps her jaw shut tight, locks her emotions tight behind walls much stronger, thicker than any child should have to build. Her eyes close, trying to block out the things she hears, the things she feels, tries to separate herself from the world. Frank aches, again, always, for the things they have done to this strange, sharp girl, the things they continue to do, the person they are forcing her to become.

Martin gives her a look, prompting, pitying but Laurel stays silent while the voice over the line continues to plead, continues to speaking, hoping, desperately for an answer.

“Mr. Castillo,” Martin says smoothly when it becomes clear Laurel won’t speak. “Jorge. I think I have something of yours. Something I think you probably want back.”

“Laurel,” he says again, the sound strangled and raw, wanting, like he’s calling out to her, calling her home.

“Yes,” Martin tells him. “Laurel. This call is probably being traced, you’d be stupid not to, so I’ll make this quick. Ten mill, bearer bonds. No questions, no alterations. We’ll speak again soon. Discuss the details.”

He goes to end the call, hesitates for just a moment, one eye swinging to Laurel, eyebrow raised in invitation.

She meets his eyes, chin raised defiantly, jaw tight, murderous, refusing to cave, refusing to beg. And yet, Frank can see the tremble under her skin, the desperate yearning in her eyes, the sorrow, wanting to call out to her father, wanting to plead, beg him to rescue her, to save her, to protect her from the monsters under the bed he told her weren’t real. She forces her eyes away, from Martin, from the phone that is her lifeline, glances away and looks down to her knees, squaring her shoulder against whatever else comes for her.

Frank wants to say something, wants to tell Martin to stop, to leave Laurel out of whatever negotiations, whatever strategy he’s playing at with her father, leave her in the dark about whatever demands are being made, whatever deals are being cut. She doesn't need to know, doesn't need to know how much she’s worth, how desperately her father wants her back, how thoroughly it cuts at him. She doesn't need anyone else’s pain to add to her own.

He wants to tell Martin this is unnecessary, that its only designed to hurt Laurel, to see if he can break her, cause her to crumble, because there’s no other reason for this, not yet. There’s no need to send proof of life, now, not when they’re only just trying to establish that they’ve taken her, set out the terms of the deal, set out their demands. There’ll be opportunities for the girl’s father to make demands, to demand to speak to, to see his daughter. But not yet, not so soon and Frank knows there is no reason for these negotiations, these setting of terms to be taking place in front of the girl other than that Martin knows it will hurt her, will tear gaping swaths of bloody ribbons into her heart, across her chest.

Martin smiles, a mean, venal thing, like he’s enjoying the struggle within the girl, like he’s enjoying her hurt. He shrugs as Laurel’s father’s voice echoes over the connection, calling out, again and again, to his child, scared and desperate and alone, a rapid mixture of Spanish and English and pure, helpless desperation.

“Laurel,” Jorge pleads, voice cracking. “Laurel, please _mija_ , say something, please.”

With that, Martin clicks the call off, grins at Laurel as he pops the battery from his phone, drops it in his pocket. “You’ll have another chance to speak to him if you'd like. Later.”

Laurel just sneers, tears glistening on her lashes, swimming in her eyes, big and blue and sorrowful, Martin laughing at her response, almost gleeful at her defiance. He turns to Frank, reaches his hand out. Frank, confused, holds up the bag of burritos he’d all but forgotten about.

“Phone. Please,” Martin demands, rolling his eyes.

“What?” Frank asks. “Why?”

“Because,” he tells Frank, like he’s a small, stupid child. “I have more I need to discuss with her father and I want to keep him on his toes. And I don’t have another battery down here.”

Frank wants to ask why he needs another phone when he should be blocking the number, should be keeping the calls short enough there’s no way to trace the call, when he’s already removed his battery. Instead he just shrugs, hands over the burner, resolves to go out and get himself another as soon as he’s able, wants nothing to do with a phone Martin’s put his hands on.

Martin flips it open, regards Laurel thoughtfully for a long moment. “Laurel,” he demands. “Eyes up.”

She raises her eyes to him, slowly, with as much defiance as Frank thinks she’s willing to risk, the blue of her gaze hollow and haunted, the skin around them bruised and raw, smiles her sharp, terrible smile.

Martin chuckles, snaps a quick picture of her, then another, fires off what Frank thinks is a text to her father, goading him, baiting him into giving in to Martin’s demands, into giving up, getting his daughter back home. He types out a quick text, fires it off.

“I’m really hoping you blocked my number before you sent that,” Frank growls, because the last thing they need is the cops swarming on them because Martin was too stupid not to take the right precautions.

“Of course,” he says politely, smiling a smirking half smile, again removing the battery before handing the phone back to Frank.

He holds his his out again, to Chris this time, takes the other man’s phone with a thin smile. He punches a few numbers and once again, the ringing of the phone echoes over the line.

“I hope you received my message,” Martin begins when they hear the line pick up, cutting through Jorge Castillo’s strangled, searching words.

“If you hurt her…,” the other man hisses over the line, voice low and filled with a malice that gives Frank pause, that makes him wonder and just who they’re going up against.

Martin chuckles, raises his eyebrows at Laurel, amusement evident in every line of his face, something edging towards glee, excitement. “I have,” he tells the other man smoothly. “Not badly, not yet. But I have, and I’ll hurt her worse if you don’t do exactly as I ask.”

There’s something strangled over the line, something desperate, like her father doesn't know what to do with the rage and the grief filling him, has no outlet for the things he wants to do, the violence he wants to unleash. “I want to hear her voice,” he demands, voice rasping. “I want to know she’s ok.”

Martin smiles but says nothing, extends the phone towards Laurel.

She lifts her eyes, meets his gaze but locks her jaw tight, stubborn.

“Laurel,” Martin prompts, voice like a warning.

When she continues to wrap herself in silence, the other man smiles, quickly, like a grimace and shrugs. He takes a few quick steps so that he comes to stand behind the chair, Frank’s stomach clenching cold and painful, knowing there’s nothing anyone can do to stop this, nothing anyone can do to ease the pain coming to Laurel.

Martin raises his eyes to Frank, smile still playing around his lips and yanks, sharp and twisting, at Laurel’s broken wrist until she cries out, high and strangled, tries to clamp her mouth shut, tries to fight against the pain, fails, the sound torn from her throat.

The voice on the other end of the line is shouting now, a mix of Spanish and English that Frank’s brain can’t even begin to decipher and he sees Laurel blanch, her face draining of blood, sees it go stiff and rigid as though she’s turned her body to stone, lines of pain etched across her skin but her eyes hard and distant.

Frank feels his jaw tighten, almost to the point of pain, feels his hands clench into fists, fighting against the temptation, fighting against the primal urge to step forward, step in, do something to protect this girl, to keep her from being hurt. He doesn't know what it is, doesn't want to know what it is, look too closely at the things cracking open inside him, the first spring shoots splitting apart the dry, crumbling earth to reach the sunlight, doesn't want to know what is behind the impulse to step in, protect Laurel from the things they are all being paid to do. But its like a compulsion, one he can’t resist, though he wants to, wants to remove himself from this situation entirely, forget what is occurring down in this basement, forget he was ever tasked with this job, forget the kind of man he thinks Martin is, the kind of girl he thinks Laurel might be becoming.

Instead, he just tightens his jaw, clamps it shut against all the things he wants to say, shout to the other man, to the girl, to her father, clenches his fists tight to keep from swinging and tells himself he can’t hear the things that spill from her lips, the things like screams, like pleas to a long dead god, for mercy, for revenge, for the end, closes his ears, closes his heart to the high sobbing cry that is ripped from her body. 

Frank simply closes himself off, pretends he is somewhere else, takes his mind and goes away, imagines something else, something better. It’s a technique he perfected long ago, when he was his own version of a child trapped in a room he couldn’t escape, locked up for a crime he could never speak the truth of, told he couldn't go home, forced to see things, feel things, endure things no child should ever have to witness. He got through his decade in juvie the same way he’ll get through this, the same way he knows Laurel will get through this, by making himself a stone, making himself stronger than all the things that could hurt him, by finding the place inside himself that is hardest, angriest, strongest and clinging to it, clinging to it and shielding himself with it when there was nothing else left, when everything else inside him had been torn away by fear and pain and loneliness, the little kernel of Frank-ness that remained.

Except now, well, now he’s not sure he can, not sure he can turn his skin to diamonds, send his mind racing deep through warrens and tunnels and caverns until he’s not sure he can make it back to the surface. Because instead of protecting himself, he needs to protect Laurel, needs to make sure she’s safe, whole and he can’t do that by fleeing inside himself, by going internal, by burying his mind away and locking the door behind it, no, no, he needs to keep himself present to he can protect Laurel, keep her from feeling the things that he was forced to feel, keep her mind, her body from cracking the way his did long ago. He doesn't know if he can, if he has the strength to protect her, but he knows he has to try, knows he can’t be responsible for turning her into a shell of herself.

“I hope that was satisfactory Mr. Castillo,” Martin says, laughter moving through his voice like a wake. “Because I think our time’s up again.”

He ends the call, removes Chris’s battery as well, places it in his pocket with the others. He smiles at the two of them, Frank and Chris and maybe Laurel too, a little chuckle rumbling up from his chest.

“I’ll call back at the end of your shift,” he throws at Chris, strides purposefully, his steps quick and clipped towards the staircase. “Let me know if anything interesting happens with her.”

Frank sighs as he looks down at his phone. “Well, anyone need any errands run?” he asks glumly, turning around and handing Chris the bag of burritos. “Since now I have to toss the phone and the sim.”

Chris shrugs, glowering down at his toes, refusing to meet Frank’s eyes.

“You think anything’s open right now?” Frank asks Chris under his breath, throwing a quick glare in the direction of the staircase, to Martin’s echoing footfalls against the wood.

Chris shrugs again, face expressionless but he finally looks up, meets Frank’s eyes. “Dunno. I can grab you a new one tomorrow.”

He hums. “I’ll trade you an extra hour down here if you do,” Frank offers.

“Sold,” Chris tells him. “But I want that hour now. I’ll ditch the phone, but I wanna eat alone, without her watching me.”

Frank chuckles. “Never knew you to be a shy eater.”

He throws a long unhappy look towards Laurel. “She’s off putting,” he tells Frank. “Steals my appetite.”

“Alright,” he tells the other man. “Take an hour or two, get some grub, trash my phone. Yours too.”

“Gotcha,” Chris says, nodding as he takes the phone from Frank’s hands, just before a grin slides crookedly on his face. “Look at you, getting a second burner on one job. Lucky kid.”

“I do love my burners,” Frank chuckles, and its true, he does. He’s been fascinated by technology since he got out, put all his spare energy, time, money into understanding the way technology has changed, advanced since he was locked up. He loves phones, computers, smart watches, TVs, hell, Frank even loves a good GPS, wants to understand everything about them, the way they work, the way people use them.

Chris rolls his eyes.”Gimme my burrito.”

Frank fishes through the bag, pulls out the one he thinks is Chris’s carnitas. “I got one for boss man too,” he tells the other man, because as much as he doesn't like Martin, he’s not an asshole, not about to deliberately keep him from food. He pulls out a second burrito, hands it off to Chris who tucks it under his arm. “Chicken, just to be safe. You willing to take it to him?”

Chris nods, though Frank notices his eyes suddenly narrow. “You got one for her too?”

He shrugs, finds himself bristling, unable to help the stubborn, mutinous look he knows flashes across his face. “Yeah, course I did.”

Chris says nothing, but Frank’s known him long enough to know he’s not pleased. “C’mon, man,” he says, voice low and full of warning, the kind of quick, sharp note of caution he’d throw Frank’s way long ago when they were locked up together, when his emotions would get the best of him, when he’d take the bait some other boy would throw him, say something designed to snap Frank’s temper, get a reaction out of him. Chris’s always looking out for him, always got his best interests at heart, Frank knows it, because Chris’s had his back for the better part of a decade, for as far back as he can remember and he trusts the other man with his life, completely. And yet, on this, Frank knows he’s right and Chris’s wrong, knows there’s no reason he should be cautious, hesitate to bring the girl food, why he should balk at small acts of kindness. Its what Chris did for him long ago and it cost the other man nothing, or nothing besides Frank trailing after him for the next ten years like an eager puppy.

“What?” Frank asks, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning back while he waits for an answer he knows Chris’s not going to give him, not one he’s satisfied with anyway.

“Wherever you think you’re going,” Chris tells him, scowling. “Don’t go there man. Please.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Frank assures him. “I’m just feeding her.”

“Don’t do more than that, ok,” Chris warns him. “Be good. Be smart.”

“Always,” Frank replies with a grin he hopes is filled with a cockiness, a confidence he doesn't really feel, with an assurance he hopes to find someday soon.

“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he reminds Frank as he heads towards the stairs. “I’ll be sure to get you a pink phone. Really cute one.”

He snorts, rolls his eyes as the other man goes, turns back to Laurel, holds up the bag with the remaining burritos. “You want pork or chicken?”

She turns to him, eyes hollow, unseeing, then turns away, her expression blank and her face drawn.

Frank doesn't say anything more, leaves her to her silence as he listens to the click of Chris’s steps on the stairs, the click of the lock on the door as he goes.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, its chapter 10...  
> You might also notice that I've set a chapter number on here, so we're about a third of the way through the fic. Things are gonna start to pick up a little, but not really because laurel is still kidnapped and frank is still trying to be her friend and no one's going anywhere...

Silence echoes through the empty basement, loud as screams, heavy and choking and burning like fire across his skin, until he’s not sure he can go a second longer without sound, without saying something, breaking the terrible tension, the terrible silence.

And then, he hears Laurel’s sob, cracking through the silence like a shot, sees her face crumble, collapse in on itself, her face a mask of grief, eyes closed tight and her face stricken, teeth sinking into her bottom lip, desperate to keep silent, to let nothing escape her lips. All the quivering tension, the white knuckled control she's had on her thoughts, her face, her emotions, it all vanishes, instantly, from her body, her limbs, slides from her like Laurel’s taking off a mask until she’s just a tiny scared girl, not the fierce, angry creature she’s been presenting to them all, the unshakeable calm certainty, the blaze of her furious, righteous anger, it all slips off her like raindrops as her shoulders curl in, as she slumps forward, body bowed and broken.

She slips forward, head bowed as she gasps, sobs, her whole body shaking desperately, trembling with a force that rattles everything within her, a leaf in a storm, a paper boat tossed on the waves, able only to go where the forces battering her body take her.

Frank thinks that if it were possible to see heartbreak, see a heart shatter into a million pieces, the cracks splitting across it’s surface like spiderwebs, so many its impossible to hold form, impossible to remain whole, splitting into shards sharp as razors and small as dust, slicing bloody gouges across her chest, well, Frank thinks that if it were possible, that’d be what he sees behind the girl’s eyes, nothing but her heart breaking.

He sees the tears that stream from her eyes, slip down to splatter on her thighs, slow and heavy, thinks he hears the staccato percussion of them against her skin, each teardrop a slow pinprick through his chest. He knows he hears the stutter in her breath as she tries to swallow her sobs, tries to summon strength back into her body, steal it back from wherever its fled.

He lets her cry, can’t do anything else, despite everything within him urging Frank to step in, ease her pain somehow. She’s just a child, just a fucking child who wants her father, who wants someone to come and rescue her and tell her that its all just a bad dream, to take away this horrible nightmare. He wants to wrap her in his arms, wants to whisper against her hair that it will be alright, try to convince her, convince himself that it will all be ok, one day, someday. He doesn't know where the impulse comes from, but it hits him, hard, crushing, a steady weight against his chest, around his ribs like a vice.

Instead, he steps back, steps away from her, slinks back to the concrete wall, slumps down against it, unsure of what to do, unsure of what he can do. He doesn't even have his books with him, doesn't have any distractions beyond his burritos and Frank’s suddenly no longer hungry, guilt and grief settling heavy across his heart, dragging him down, a heavy rope digging into his throat, a lead weight around his ankles.

He wants to give her privacy, wants to let her grieve in peace, come to terms with the terrible things that have been done to her, but he can’t, can’t leave her alone. He wants to give her what he can, but he can’t give her that.

Instead, Frank tries to make himself as small, as silent as possible, tries to make it easy to ignore him, pretend he’s not there, curls himself against the wall, back scraping against the wall, almost painfully, crouches there, arms resting on his knees, watching her, barely blinking, barely breathing.

She’s a child and he’s hurt her, deeply, permanently, the kind of hurt you don’t come back from, can’t come back from, the kind of hurt that was done to him, once, the kind that shattered him until he’s not sure, even now, he’s the same person that entered the juvenile secure detention facility somewhere in northeastern Pennsylvania, farther north than he’d ever been before. He doesn't think Laurel will ever be able to come back from this, not really, from knowing that there is nothing anyone can do to protect her from the terrible things in the world, that there is no one who will save her, that all the things she feared most are nothing compared to the true evil that lurks in the world. No, he’s not sure this is something she can recover from and still be the same girl that went running down the beach trail one morning two days ago.

She smothers her sobs, he’s not sure how long it takes but eventually he hears her tears stop, hears her breath even out, shaky and tentative at first but then coming slower, each exhale still harsh, like it tears across her chest, hot angry claws raking across her chest, her throat, like each breath hurts to have even thought about.

“I…,” she looks up finally, glances at Frank, her voice harsh and low, barely more than a whisper. He startles at the sound of her voice, unused to speech from Laurel, unused to any sound at all. Her eyes are red rimmed, hollow and haunted, but there’s still that lingering, unshakable ferocity lurking deep within her, the low burning embers of the strength he’s still marveling at, still finds himself astounded by. She summons her strength from some reserve, some well inside her that never seems to dry and forces herself to her feet, forces herself to continue forward, strength the only weapon left to her. “I…thank you.”

“For what?” he asks, confused, sitting up a little higher against the wall. He doesn't know what she’s thanking him for, doesn't know what small comfort he’s managed to give her, because if he knew, if he had any idea, Frank believes, with certainty down to his bones, to his very marrow, that he would do anything, sacrifice anything, to give it to her again, to give her anything in his power to give.

“For staying,” she tells him, turning and hitching her shoulders as best she can to allow her to wipe her tears against the skin of her shoulders, failing. She sniffles, blinks away the last of the moisture in her eyes. “For being the one to stay.”

“I…,” Frank begins, stops himself before he says too much, doesn't say enough. He doesn't know what that means, can’t begin to let himself hope at what it does, can’t because he knows allowing himself to hope, to imagine at the things she means is dangerous, is deadly, like looking at a too bright sun. “Of course.”

She nods once, jaw tight and Frank thinks, knows, that she’s retreated back to silence again. He doesn't know what prompted her to speak, but he knows the moment has passed, a little spark that flares to life, extinguished just as fast.

He sighs, tries to ignore the flare of disappointment in his chest when he realizes there really is no truce to be had between them. “You ok?”

She shrugs, a little wiggle to her shoulders but he can see the lingering hurt, like bruises, behind her eyes. She’s not ok and they both know it. She’s not going to be ok for a very long time.

“You able to eat at least?”

Another shrug, but not a ‘no,’ Frank thinks, which with Laurel at least, has been as good as a yes.

“Chicken or pork then?” he asks, holding up the bag of burritos.

She blinks rapidly, hitches her shoulders again to try and brush the tears away, ignores Frank’s words.

“Well,” he tells her. “If you don’t pick one you’re getting pork.”

She looks at him, a long slow moment that stretches out until Frank’s not sure how long they’ve been staring at each other and arches an eyebrow. “I’m Mexican you know,” she finally tells him, her voice soft, almost gentle and Frank startles at her words again, still confused, still surprised when she chooses speech, chooses to reach out to him.

“Uh, yeah,” he agrees, scratching at a spot behind his ear with one hand. “I know.”

“You really had to go for shitty Mexican food, didn’t you,” she deadpans.

“Uh, sorry?”

“You gonna untie me if I eat?” she asks wiggling her shoulders up and down so that Frank can’t help but laugh at her, at the little shiver that runs across her body.

“Only your right hand,” he says, watching her shrug her assent, give that little wiggle of her shoulders again, prompting.

He goes to her, snaps the zip tie around her wrist, freeing her arm. She wipes quickly at the lingering moisture clinging to the angles of her cheekbones, dashing her tears away impatiently.

“So?” he asks again. “Chicken or pork?”

Laurel shrugs. “Surprise me.”

He hands her the pork, takes the chicken for himself. “Sure you’re ok?” he asks as she rips the foil from around the burrito, takes a quick bite, chewing slowly, thoughtfully.

“I know where you went,” she tells him, ignoring his questions, eyes flashing and her teeth suddenly sharp, glinting. “I know these burritos. We’re still in Palm Beach.”

Frank shrugs. “We might be.”

“I thought we were,” she says thoughtfully, glancing between Frank and her burrito. “I’m not sure how I knew, but I knew we hadn't gone far. It still feels like Palm Beach.”

“It doesn't matter where we are,” he tells her, needs her to understand that she could be anywhere, and it still wouldn't matter, because the location of the basement doesn't matter, all that matters is that she’s here, that she can’t leave, that the where doesn't matter nearly as much as the why. “We could be just down the block from your dad’s palace. It doesn't change anything.”

She nods slowly. “I know. But it matters to me.”

She fades into silence again, watches Frank as he tears into the food, barely making any headway on her own.

“I can guarantee if you don’t finish that thing, my buddies are gonna keep giving it to you until you do,” he warns her.

Laurel just shrugs, places the burrito, forgotten, between her knees. “They don’t really seem much like your buddies.”

“Don’t do that,” he tells her sharply as she raises an eyebrow at him, a challenge in her voice. “Try to analyze me, get hints about what's going on, try to play us against each other. You're not smart enough to pull it off.”

She gives him a blank look, full of too studied innocence until she quirks an eyebrow at him, grins, wide and feral. “I’m smart enough to do whatever I want.”

He believes her is the thing, believes fully and utterly that Laurel would be able to pull off anything she set her mind to, play the three of them against each other if she truly wanted to, if she wasn't sleep deprived and starving and probably concussed. He thinks she’s perhaps the most fearsome thing he’s ever seen and he is certain, totally and utterly certain, that the world would reshape itself to Laurel Castillo’s commands were she to wish it, would bow down at her feet, lay itself before her as tribute to the things inside her heart, inside her mind.

“I don’t doubt that,” is all he tells her, and though he chuckles, they both know is merely to disguise that his words are real, true.

She watches him closely, something calculating behind her eyes, like she’s trying to solve him, some complex equation in which Frank thinks he must be x. He doesn't know if she does, doesn't see that moment of insight flash across her face, nothing like a spark of understanding; instead, Frank just watches as the blue of her eyes gets deeper, as she waits, patiently, for him, for herself, regards him like she’s listening to the thoughts that rattle through his brain, listening to the things that flit across his face, emotions and thoughts he’s unable to hide, like far off music, like whispers on the breeze.

“You ok?” he asks her finally, voice rough and wavering, when he finds he can no longer stand to be looked at by her, looked at like some curious new creature she doesn't yet quite understand, some animal with five legs or three eyes, strange and new.

She chuckles, smiles sadly around her lingering tears. “Don’t look so terrified,” she tells him. “I’m fine.”

He doesn't question her, lets her have that lie, doesn't tell her it will be ok because he’s really, really not sure it will be. “Your hand ok?”

She shrugs. “Its been better.”

“Shit,” he breathes, giving her a sheepish smile. “I promised you something stronger, didn’t I? For the pain.”

She nods, lips quirking, eyes suddenly sparking with something like laughter, burying the pain, the sorrow down deep where she won’t feel it anymore. “You did,” she confirms.

“Shit,” he says again. “When I come back for real.”

The corner of her mouth pulls again, just enough he catches it, certain she allows only enough emotion onto her face for him to catch it and no more. “Well you’ve come to the right city for a late night drug run.”

Frank snorts, rolls his eyes. “I’ll just pick up something with codeine. Nothing so impressive as you’re thinking.”

“Some criminal mastermind,” she tells him, quirk of her lips almost turning into a smirk.

“Drug crime isn't really my thing.”

“What is your thing then?” she asks him. Her eyes still glisten with long forgotten tears, her cheeks wet with them, shining in the thin light of the basement but her eyes are filled with resilience, determination. “Since kidnapping doesn't really look like your day job.”

“Little of this, little of that,” he shrugs while she watches him intently, blue eyes flashing with it.

She hums, a shadow passing across her eyes, a long, unbreachable distance passing between them. “Sounds like my dad.”

“Don’t know about that,” he says cautiously.

“I do,” she says deliberately as she shuts her mouth again, defiance in the line of her jaw and Frank wonders if he’s going to hear her voice again, wonders if he’s chased speech back within Laurel, if she’ll swallow it down and return to silence.

“I will though,” he promises her lamely, scrubbing a hand across his beard in embarrassment, in awkwardness, he’s not really sure anymore. “Get you some better painkillers.”

“You better,” she tells him sharply. “You assholes are the reason I need them.”

“I don’t think,” Frank begins before he can help himself.

“What?” she cuts him off, voice snapping like a wire through the silence he leaves behind. “That its not your fault? That you had nothing to do with me being in pain?”

“No, I…”

“You are,” she hisses, eyes fixed on his, cold and burning at the same time. Laurel’s words when she speaks are a mixture of threat and promise, spoken with a certainty Frank isn't sure he’s ever felt before in his life. “Every single thing that happens down here, its your fault. You think you can charm me with painkillers and burritos and your stupid charming smile, make me forget what you are? I’m never going to forget, not as long as I live.”

“I’m not the bad guy here,” he blurts out, except yes, he is. He’s telling himself he’s not, trying to create a distinction between himself and Martin, himself and Chris, but its one without a difference. He can bring her all the burritos in the world, bring her painkillers until she floats on a sea of numbness, but it won’t make a difference and it doesn't matter. Because he won’t do the one thing that will, won’t do the one thing that will make him different from them; he won’t let her go home.

“Yes, you are,” she tells him, echoing his own racing thoughts, speaking like she’s pronouncing his fate, like she’s a vengeful god meting out justice, deciding if he’s worthy or not, her voice dripping with certainty. “You want to tell yourself you’re not, but you’re exactly like that man who snapped my fingers, my wrist. I’m not a person to you, I’m just a means to an end. You were right, I’m just a fucking paycheck, a body, because no one could do this to another person. No one worth a damn anyway.”

And there it is, the truth he's been trying to hide from from the start. That he can do whatever he likes, do whatever things he can dream up to make things better for Laurel, to ease her pain and fear, but they’re all really for him in the end, just designed to make himself feel better about what he’s been tasked to do.

He’s like the guards he hated the most back in juvie, the ones who would smile at him, ask how his day was going, let it slide when he snuck candy out of the visitor’s area after his mom and siblings came through on Sundays, let him have a couple extra books in his cell even though it was against regulations. He hated them for their kindness, for trying to disguise the hell that he was in, make him forget, even for a moment, that he was locked up, that he was never free, always subject to their whims and wishes. He hated them for their power and hated them more for the power they lacked. The power to do anything, to change anything real about his life. And now, well, that’s what he’s become to Laurel, to this strange, sharp girl who doesn't deserve any of this.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“No,” she tells him coldly, eyes deadly and razor sharp against his skin. “You’re not. If you were, we wouldn't be here. But,” she continues and suddenly the ice has vanished from her skin, sloughed off like shoots breaking through a crust of frost, surging up to meet the sun. “You’re the best thing I have right now, the only thing I have right now, really.”

“I’m…”

“You’re sorry,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, I know. But not sorry enough for it to matter.”

“I'm just trying to make this as positive an experience as I can,” he tells her, hands at his sides, palms out, imploring. He doesn't know if he can make her understand, doesn't know if he ought to, deserves to, but he wants her to know she shouldn't be mad at him for what he’s trying to do, the efforts he’s making to try and lessen, even fractionally, the horror of these next few days. He knows she’s mad, furious really, has every right to be, has every right to hate, resent him just as much as she resents Martin, Chris. But he still wants her to know what he’s doing, even if its only to make himself feel better. And maybe that’s really all it is, just a way to ease his own nagging, churning guilt. But some compulsion makes him continue on, continue forward, try and make her understand what he’s doing, where he’s coming from.

“Really?” she asks, raising an eyebrow in a mocking challenge. “Cause last I checked I was still zip tied, can't think of anything positive about that.”

“Not that,” he admits. “But where I can. I'm trying to make it better.”

She hums softly, lips twisting. “What positive do you think I will ever get out of having a broken arm for what's probably now two days?”

“It'll make for a really killer college admissions essay,” he points out, the only thing he can think to say, letting his crooked smirk flit across his face, teasing and taunting.

She stares at him across the vast distance between them, the handful of feet between her chair and Frank’s position against he wall, stares at him as though he’s speaking another language, one she’s never heard before. And then, and then she laughs, amazingly, astoundingly, she laughs, a bark, sharp and bitter but a laugh all the same that rumbles out of her, fast and light and cutting. She grins, teeth glinting and Frank let's his smirk widen, lets his own chuckle burst up out of him.

“You’re an ass,” she tells him around the last of her laughter, her grin still wide and bladed. “But I can’t deny you’re right.”

“I’m gonna get you into an Ivy,” he smirks.

“I’m getting myself into an Ivy,” she corrects shooting him a pointed look. “I didn’t need you. I still don’t.”

“Wouldn't put it past you,” he admits, remembering his background intel on her, her clubs, activities, the way she appeared to have thrown herself into everything she did with a focused abandon. He knows its true, knows that’s simply how Laurel is, focused and driven, her mind always moving, calculating, weighing odds he can’t begin to understand.

“Gimme your email,” she quips. “I’ll send you a copy of my diploma in five years.”

“Good try,” he tells her, rolling his eyes. “But I’m not quite as dumb as I look.”

Laurel just quirks an eyebrow at him, corner of her mouth quirking into the start of a smirk.

“Walked into that one, didn’t I?” he chuckles while she just shrugs, grins around her burrito.

And Frank’s not a smart man, that much has been plainly established, but he does know when to take a victory, does know when to accept what he’s been given, the things that luck and chance offer to him. So he takes the little victory, minor and inconsequential, takes it and holds it in his palms, tiny and fragile and cherished, protects it with everything he has, vows that he’ll add more to his collection, but will keep this one safe for now, warm and loved and treasured.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he says much later, once they’ve both plowed through their food, Laurel carefully wrapping up what’s left of hers, tucking it next to her, tight against her hip and the chair, like she’ll be able to keep it with her. “You feeling dizzy, nauseous, any concussion symptoms like that?”

“Why? You gonna take me for a CAT Scan if I do?” she asks, though there’s little malice behind her words, just a strange open honesty. “I’m fine. Or as fine as I’m gonna be given the situation. So don’t worry your pretty face over me.”

“You saying I’m pretty?” Frank asks her with a smirk, cocky and teasing.

“Definitely not,” she assures him with a scoff, though he catches her glancing away, down towards her feet, cheeks tinged pink, lighting up the sharp paleness of her cheeks.

“Oh man,” he says, still gleeful and teasing, thrilling at the thought, at the incredible possibility that she’s joking with him, almost, able to feel anything but anger, disgust at him, able to even let go of her hate long enough to notice that he’s not half bad looking. “You think I’m cute. You do.”

“I don’t,” she insists, voice like a growl, still unable to meet his eyes. Frank almost laughs because she is a terrible liar, or a terrible liar about this, something. He doesn't know her, not in any way that matters, and yet he think he might know her better than anyone, has seen parts of Laurel he suspects no one has ever seen before, seen her at her most broken, most vulnerable, seen her tested in a way he’s not sure any human deserves to be. He knows her deeply, intimately, and yet, he still knows nothing about her.

“Nah,” he continues, choking on the hard lump against his windpipe, trying to force himself to keep grinning, to keep things light, keep himself appearing like the cocky asshole he usually is, that he wishes he was able to be, here, in this moment. “You do.”

“You’ve heard of Stockholm syndrome haven't you?” she asks, frowning suddenly, her eyes hard, the line of her jaw sharp. “I wouldn't be so proud of myself if I were you. If I did think you were cute. Which I don’t.”

He shrugs, tries not to look as hurt as he feels, thinks he probably fails. “I’m willing to take what I can get.”

“Not from me.”

“I just like people thinking I’m cute,” he tells her, grin slanted. “Doesn't gotta mean anything else.”

“I hate you,” she replies as Frank startles. There’s no real heat behind her words, no anger, just cold, clenched certainty, just a recitation of the facts, as obvious as if she’d told him it was raining outside or that too much radiation is bad for you. 

“No you don’t,” he scoffs, because hate is a strong word, hate is a word you can’t really come back from. He’s had a lot of time to contemplate hate, a lot of time to think about what it really means, ten years of hating people, or thinking he did. And even the people he was angriest at, even the people who scared him, hurt him the most, even the people who he wouldn't have minded going after, leaving them bloody and shattered, well, Frank knows he didn’t really hate them either. And this girl, she doesn't really understand what hate is, can’t, not yet, maybe not ever, because she’s barely more than a child and she doesn't know enough about the world, hasn’t seen enough of life to understand hate, understand anything. She’s a sheltered little princess, really she is, and this is her first taste of the terrible place the world can be, but its not enough for her to understand hate, nowhere near enough for her to understand. She’s gone through nothing, nothing that would allow her to even begin to understand hate. “You’re just pissed about this situation.”

“Its not a ‘situation,’” she snaps, hackles raised now. Frank sees her right hand tighten into a fist, then relax, slowly like she’s forcing down a sudden flare of anger, forcing herself to choose calm where she can, where she’s able. “You kidnapped me. Call this what it is.”

“Fine,” he shrugs, overlooking the twist in his gut when he thinks about what it really is, what this kidnapping really means, really is. He’s been trying to overlook it, kid himself about what they’re all doing, trying not to look at the situation too clearly, make his eyes go fuzzy, unfocused so that he doesn't have to see the truth of things. When he speaks he’s afraid his voice trembles, afraid she notices the tremble, the stumble, the falter, afraid she can hear the weakness inside him. “You’re…you’re pissed you were kidnapped.”

She nods firmly, eyes cold and hard and refusing to let him look away, forcing him to confront the truth of what he’s done, the truth of what he is. “I’m pissed you kidnapped me. I’m pissed you continue to kidnap me with every single second that passes. This isn't something you did, asshole, this is something you continue to do,” she pauses, looks away suddenly, the blue grey of her gaze, the color of storm clouds on the water, far off at sea, tear themselves away from him, blink furiously as tears spring to her eyes, as her voice, like Frank’s catches. “You kidnapping me, its never going to end. Not for me. Not until I die.”

She laughs then, sharp and wet around her tears. “Which, honestly, is gonna be sooner rather than later, knowing my dad. He’s not going to pay you.”

“He sounded pretty ready to pay me about forty five minutes ago,” Frank points out. “Unless you heard a different conversation from the one I did.”

“He’s upset,” Laurel nods, gives a little quirk to her shoulders before she says more, like she wants to steal herself more time before she speaks. “Course he’s upset. He’s a monster, but even monsters have children. He’s just not going to pay you, no matter how upset he is.”

Frank raises an eyebrow, smirks at her. “I’ve never known anyone not to pay to get their kid back,” he tells her. “Not even monsters.”

“You’ve never known my father.” 

She says it with such certainty, such definitiveness that Frank balks for a moment, doesn’t quite know what to say for a long, long moment that stretches out into silence, into an uncertain infinity. He doesn’t know what has her this convinced, but Laurel remains steadfast in her convictions that no ransom will be coming and for just a sharp, cutting instant, it makes Frank doubt too, makes him doubt what they’re all doing here, why they’re bothering at all in this futile venture.

“I don’t,” he admits, tries to summon his own version of certainty from somewhere, some reserve that’s long since run dry. He’s certain of only one thing about this whole disaster; that no matter the outcome, they will have ruined this strange, sharp girl, have already ruined her. “But I know people. Hell, I know monsters. They always pay.

Laurel shrugs, lips twisting nonchalantly, even as Frank tries to see through the lie. “We’ll see,” she tells him. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’ve got a gun to my head and your boss telling you to pull the trigger.”

“Its not gonna come to that,” he insists, stomach dropping, clenching at that thought. He rejects it, utterly, because he can’t think of it, can’t think of having to do that, kill this girl for no reason, for some senseless reason, he can’t.

“What if it does?”

“It won’t,” he repeats.

“I’m the one that’s gonna get the wrong end of a bullet,” she tells him sharply, eyes suddenly clear and dry and staring straight through him, like she’s the bullet ripping through his chest. “And I know my dad. So I have to think of these things, even if you don’t want to contemplate them.”

“Hey,” he begins, tries for calming, soothing, sounding, he realizes, like he’s talking to a dangerous animal, pacing and on edge, ready to tear through the softest parts of him, leave him utterly destroyed. “Laurel…”

“You wanted to know why I’m pissed about you kidnapping me?” she cuts him off, eyes blazing, the angles of her cheekbones like axe blades in the dim light of the basement, throwing her eyes into shadow, already hollow and looking now like two fires burning in the darkness. “I’m not pissed about you kidnapping me, I’m pissed you're going to get to forget this, shrug it off and never think about it again and I’m never going to be able to forget. Forget you, forget this, forget the choices everyone else is making about me. I’m not going to be able to forget exactly how much or how little I’m worth to him, how long it takes him to decide I’m not worth ten mill. Fuck you.”

“Fuck you,” she continues, spitting out her anger now, sliding forward against her bonds like she wants to break them, go for this throat. “For making me want my dad, for making me hate him less than I hate you. He's a monster, and you’ve made me forget the terrible things he does, the terrible thing he is. You just made me want him to come and save me.”

“You’re pissed that you love him?” Frank asks confused.

“No,” she says with a sigh as all the anger drains from her, slips from her body and puddles at her feet, as Laurel sags back against the chair, utterly defeated by her own rage, by the growing knowledge of how futile it is. “I’m pissed you have me wondering if he’s not the worst person in the world.”


	11. Chapter 11

“I'm usually the cure for daddy issues,” he chuckles, smirks at her. He doesn't know what else to do, to do with this heavy, seeking feeling, the ice in his fingertips and the catch in his breath, doesn’t know how to respond to the chilly anger, the deep well of sorrow inside her, doesn’t know how to make it better, bridge the terrible gulf between them. “Never been told I'm worse than someone's dad. So this is a new one for me.”

She laughs sharply, head thrown back so he can see the long column of her throat, arched and pale and stretching for miles like some strange, soft highway. “If you had any idea what you're talking about I'd be angry,” she tells him, bitter laughter still in her throat. “But this, you have no idea what you're dealing with here do you, who you're dealing with.”

“I know enough,” he answers, shrugging.

“No,” she tells him with a calm, cold certainty. “You really, really don’t. But you're about to.”

“Tell me then,” he challenges, leaning back, arms crossed over his chest. He knows he’s trying to taunt her into responding, knows she realizes what he’s doing, can see her sniff at the bait, decide not to take it.

“No,” she answers simply, with a quick shake of her head, so fast he nearly misses it. “I’m not helping you.”

“Even if it means I don’t wind up having to kill you later?” he asks. “Assuming your theory is correct.”

“Even then,” she nods, once, as though to emphasize her point, a punctuation mark, not a period, but perhaps an exclamation point, emphatic and certain and yet her nod is like easing into the only answer, like slotting into the only opening that exists for her.

“It won’t come to that,” he tells her again, wondering how they’ve got to this point where he has to convince Laurel he’s not going to kill her. “Nobody’s dying here.”

“You don’t know that,” she tells him. “You don’t know anything.”

“Laurel,” he tells her, reaching out as though to take her hand, stops and lets his hand fall back against his side, lets it curl into a fist so the impulse is squashed, buried deep, smothered into nothingness, too dangerous, too tempting. “I promise, ok, nothing’s gonna happen to you if you just do what we ask.”

That familiar flame returns to her eyes. “Oh yeah?” she snaps, reaching out with her one free hand, tugging at the hem of her tank top, shimmying it up her body until she bares a long expanse of skin to him, mottled now, with bruises, blacks and blues and greens and yellows and purples staining her skin like a terrible watercolor. “You haven't protected me from shit, you can’t protect me from shit.”

“What’s,” he begins, striding long steps forward to her, reaching out for her again, even though he promised himself, swore to himself he wouldn’t. He still reaches for her, almost on instinct, the urge to protect her, to ease her pain overwhelming his brain, short circuiting what little rational thought he has left.

“The fuck it look like?” she hisses, refusing to drop her hand, lower the edge of her tank, twisting as best she can so he gets a long, view of the expanse of her side, the ladder of her ribs extending up towards the swell of her breast, dark with blood buried beneath her skin, drawn to the surface like poison. “It looks like you can’t protect me for shit. You never could.”

“Was this…” he begins, trails off as his voice gets swallowed up behind panic and fear. “Who was this? When was this?”

“Does it fucking matter?”

“No, it…” he sighs, runs his hand through his hair, something he can only identify as desperation moving through his chest. He feels like he’s been tied to the train tracks, a train bearing down on him, unable to move, free himself, unable to stop the oncoming disaster. He’s known this job is a disaster since Chris first told him about it, and now that suspicion has come to pass, now he’s watching the disaster unfold, unable to stop it, change anything, prevent even an ounce of pain from coming to her. “I can try, I can stop it. This wasn't how its supposed to be.”

“No shit,” she whispers, curls her body as best she can against the chair slats, listing to the side as her spine bends inward, protecting herself the only way she can, shielding the tender, bruised flesh of her side.

“Anyone puts another hand on you, I’ll fucking kill them,” he swears to her, chest suddenly hollow. He doesn’t care that Chris’s his partner, his best friend, that Martin is probably his boss on this job, doesn’t fucking care. There is no reason either of them should be doing this to Laurel, to this girl left at their mercy, left in their control. She’s tied up, she’s defenseless, weaponless, she has nothing that can hurt them but her words, but silence and defiance. There is no reason her side, her stomach should be mottled with bruises, none at all, no world in which this violence is justified. 

“You can’t,” she hisses, voice accusing. “He’s in charge, not you.”

“I’ll be down here,” he vows, frustration and futility and powerlessness arcing through his veins like hot lead. He’s mistrusted Martin since the start and his mistrust was well founded and there’s still not a damn thing he can do about it, his worry, his caution still meaningless. He can’t stop Martin, no matter what he says, what he hopes. But he’s going to try, no matter what he’s going to try to stop the other man from hurting her further. Frank knows powerlessness, spent a good decade at the mercy of other people, subject to their terrible whims, to their thirsts for pain, for punishment. He’s been hurt on an impulse, by guards, by other prisoners at the guards direction. He’s been a body who’s only purpose to anyone else has been suffering, an outlet for their basest compulsions. Frank knows, all too well what's being done to Laurel, and he can’t, he won’t let another person go through what he was put through. He can’t see that happen in her, can’t see her tortured, because that’s what it is, can’t see her hurt, not without reason, not without cause. He doesn't care who’s in charge or supposed to be in charge or who’s shift watching her it is or why Martin thinks she needs to be punished, needs to be reminded of his stupid fucking rules. “Anytime he is. I’ll make sure he doesn't do anything else.”

Laurel glances away, glances somewhere near Frank’s left knee, doesn't say anything further, blinking back tears.

“I will ok,” he assures her. “And if I’m not, scream or something. Please. This can’t happen anymore, he can’t do that to you.”

“He can,” she whispers, jaw clamping shut, tight and sharp. “He can and he has and he will. You can’t stop him.”

“He can’t,” Frank says again, both hands now running through his hair in desperation, trying to think of something, anything he can do to stop this. “He can’t.”

He goes to say more, wants to say more, formulate some plan with the girl to get this to stop, somehow, to signal to him that Martin is with her, that Martin is hurting her, but he hears the sound of metal on metal as Chris slides the lock at the top of the stairs. He told her to scream if Martin does anything, knows she won’t, not if Laurel can help it.

So, well, that leaves things up to Frank, because he doesn't care what Laurel wants to do, not on this, feels like an asshole that he’s taking things into his own hands when she hasn’t asked him to try and save her, protect her. Except well, maybe she has. She didn’t have to show him the mottled bruises walking up her ribs, didn’t have to crack open the door to him and let him see the ugliness inside. He doesn't know Laurel, not in any way that matters, and yet he does, already, knows that she would never, never have shown him her side if she hadn’t wanted to, if she hadn’t intended for Frank to see them. He doesn't know what her intentions were with showing him Martin’s handiwork, but Frank is certain that she intended for him to see the bruises, see the damage he caused.

And Laurel, well, Laurel doesn't know him either, not in any way that matters, but she does, same way that he knows her, intimately, deeply. She would’ve known what Frank’s reaction would’ve been, known he would react this way, with this fierce impulse to protect her, keep her from more pain. And so, well, maybe she was asking him to rescue her, even if she can’t put that desire, that impulse into anything like words, even if she can’t let herself reach out to him further, ask for more help when she needs it and Martin is hurting her more. Maybe all she can bring herself to do, maybe all the ground she can cede, surrender, is lifting up her shirt and letting Frank see the damage underneath, letting him take it from there and step into the space she’s allowed him.

He hopes, hopes that he won’t hurt her more by stepping in, but he knows he must, that something fundamental, something innate inside him will compel him to step in, stop any further violence. Frank hopes it won’t hurt Laurel more, won’t be just another instance of another man taking control from her, stepping in and treating her like a body, like some metaphor and not like she’s an actual person with wants and desires and feelings. He knows he’s probably doing the same thing, and yet, he can’t stop himself, can’t convince himself that unless she does something more, asks for more from him, he should step back and let Martin do whatever terrible things he has planned. 

No, instead, Frank will sleep on the couch in the living room if he has to, will sleep there and keep watch and slip down behind Martin every time he decides to visit Laurel, will do whatever is necessary to make sure that when her bruises fade, they’re not replaced by more, that Laurel doesn't go home with more snapped fingers, broken wrists.

“Hey,” Laurel snaps then, voice low and urgent, cutting through his thoughts. “Hey Lars, snap out of it.”

He glances up, glances at her, at the hand she’s raised expectantly, eyes flicking towards the stairs in worry.

“Can you help me out here?” she asks, sarcasm humming low behind her words as she relaxes slightly when she sees she has his attention.

“Lars?” he asks her, raising an eyebrow, teasing as he approaches her, takes her wrist and secures her again to the chair with a zip tie.

Laurel shrugs and he can see the little smirk that plays around her lips as she turns her head to watch his movements.

“Stockholm syndrome,” she offers casually. “Lars is a Swedish name right?”

He laughs, quickly, rolls his eyes. “Something like that.”

“Good,” she nods. “Then until you give me something better, you’re gonna be Lars.”

“I’d like to,” he tells her, grin spreading across his face. “But you know I can’t.

“So you’re Lars, your blonde friend can be Olaf and that asshole upstairs’ll be Sven,” Laurel tells him with a little hitch to her shoulders, a crooked little grin. “So don’t forget who’s who.”

“You gonna be able to remember?” he smirks, teasing.

“Absolutely,” she says, chin raised like she’s accepting a challenge just as Chris comes into view, and her face falls, blanches and she’s forced to look away.

“Hey man,” Chris says, throwing a little glance over towards Laurel.

“Hey,” Frank replies, fighting off the urge to address his friend as Olaf, wondering how Chris’d react to that. “How was dinner?”

“Quiet.”

Frank chuckles. “Probably would’ve been quiet down here too,” he points out. “She’s not much of a talker.”

“She’s pretty damn loud about it though,” he says, throwing another furtive glare towards Laurel, who does her best to ignore him, looking forward towards the wall like it contains all the secrets of the world.

“She’s alright,” Frank says, feeling compelled to defend the girl, feeling momentarily guilty that they’re talking about Laurel like she’s not there, like she can’t hear every thing they say about her.

“She’ll be alright when we turn her into cash,” Chris grumbles.

Frank rolls his eyes. “Its getting there. You grab me a phone?”

Chris nods. “Yeah, left the bag outside your door.”

“Cool, thanks man,” he says, heads towards the door. “You gonna be good down here?”

“Yeah,” the other man sighs. “Just fantastic. See you in a bit.”

“Holler if you need anything,” Frank throws over his shoulder, deliberately casual, catches Laurel’s eye so that she knows he’s directing his words as much towards her as to Chris, makes sure she knows that she can count on him if Martin tries anything, tries to hurt her anymore.

“Course,” Chris nods as Frank heads up the stairs, feeling his stomach sink with every stair he climbs. If he leaves he won’t be able to protect Laurel anymore, won’t be able to stop her from being hurt. He knows he can’t control everything, but he wants to, wants to make sure she’s safe. He just doesn't know how.

* * *

  
He can’t sleep. He wants to, but unconsciousness remains elusive, just out of his reach, worry churning across his skin, his veins. He’s almost scared to sleep, worried about what will happen if he lets himself relax, unclench, worried what Martin will do if Frank’s not there, if he doesn't keep his vigil, his guard over her.

He cracks a new novel, plows through a hundred pages, feeling briefly bad that he’s likely going to subject Laurel to another book she’ll have to pick up halfway through, wonders if he should just take her a book of her own next time, unbind her hands from the chair so that she can read on her own, read what she wants to. He idly considers asking her if she wants him to pick up anything in particular, wonders if he can keep Chris and Martin from realizing he’s bringing her books, leaving her hands unbound, edging far, far too close towards something he knows is dangerous, something he knows will hurt him, hurt her if takes just a few more steps forward down this uncertain path.

Frank’s exhausted, eventually puts his book away when the words begin to swim in front of his eyes, begin to rearrange themselves in strange incoherent patterns, going in and out of focus slowly until he’s no longer sure of English, of what he’s supposed to be processing.

But still he can’t sleep, lays in his bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, unseeing, every nerve in his body tense, wary, focused on the creaks, the shifts of the house, the sounds that may spell disaster for her, may signal more pain, suffering for the girl tied to a chair below him.

He’s not sure he sleeps at all, though when his alarm chirps at 5:00 a.m. he startles awake, heart pounding somewhere near his throat, worry and dread already settling in his bones like they belong there.

He needs breakfast, they all need breakfast, and yet, Frank hesitates, afraid to leave the house, afraid to leave Laurel alone for even a moment, unable to help her if she calls for him. He knows she won’t, even if Martin comes back down, punishes her for some perceived slight, some breaking of an arbitrary rule Frank isn't sure has any real benefit other than allowing Martin to feel in control, to dominate Laurel even further. She’s tied up, he wants to scream to anyone that will listen, not that he thinks it will matter in the least, there’s virtually nothing she can do. And, he’s not going to point it out, never going to take that risk, but he knows already that even unshackled, or as unshackled as is safe, Laurel is going to do very little to stage an escape. Her one effort, not that he’s going to point it out to Martin, has been ham fisted and barely counted as an escape attempt at all.

But there’s nothing in the house, so he swallows down the nagging worry, figures the other man will still be sleeping because no one should be up at 5:00 a.m. if it can be avoided, heads out to the nearest 24 hour mini mart and grabs them all a dozen breakfast sandwiches, four of the largest coffees they have and, for good measure, a local newspaper. 

Frank flips through it idly when he gets back to the car, scans the pages for any sign that their efforts have made the news.

Nothing, or at least nothing he can see. Which means, Frank knows, that Jorge Castillo was smart enough to realize his daughter had been kidnapped from the first, that she didn’t just go missing, slip off the trail and into the marsh, attacked by a gator on her run or hit by a car or struck down by random chance, a brain aneurism or undiagnosed heart condition, smart enough to realize what it meant, for him, for her, smart enough to realize that silence was his best option.

Or, Frank concludes, stomach clenching in what he refuses to admit is the beginnings of fear, he realized what Laurel’s disappearance meant and immediately went to the cops who told him what to do. That, Frank thinks, is the worst case scenario for them all, because well, cops may not be a whole hell of a lot smarter than Frank and Chris and yeah, even Martin, but they have a few million dollars more in resources, technology, tools at their disposal and, Frank knows, if the cops are involved, they have to be extra careful if they want to have any shot of making it out of this job alive, with their continued freedom intact.

But its nothing he can control now, they’ve all just got to keep it together until this job is over, whatever way it ends, all got to keep on their toes and try to make it out alive and rich. Frank finds himself instinctively adding Laurel to the list of people who need to remain alive, including her without another thought about it.

She’s in this, a part of this, this thing, this crime as much as any of them. Her role may be different, passive, and it may be involuntary, but she’s still as much a part of this terrible series of events, this kidnapping, as she’s been forcing him to call it, because well, that’s what it is, even if he doesn't want to think of it that way.

He’s pulling into the driveway when he realizes he didn’t buy her any painkillers like he promised, like he keeps promising, knows he doesn't have enough time to head back out, track down a 24 hour pharmacy, so he leaves the car, guilt already eating through him.

He heads back to the house, leaves two of the coffees and a couple sandwiches on the table for Chris and Martin, takes the rest with him as he sneaks into Chris’s room.

He knows the other man will have a stash of pot in his bag, sown into a virtually undetectable pocket on the left hand side of his backpack, will have enough that Frank can steal a couple ounces without the other man really noticing its gone. He tucks the nuggets into a tissue, feeling like an idiot. He grabs the weed, rips free a couple of rolling papers from the pack he finds in Chris’s jacket pocket and heads downstairs.

Chris snorts when he sees the coffee. “Thanks for the thought man,” he tells Frank. “But I’m trying to go to bed after this.”

“I,” Frank begins, falters, sheepish, guilty. He didn’t think it through, he realizes, didn’t think how it would look to be bringing Laurel coffee, the things Chris might think it meant. “Yours is upstairs actually. Stick it in the fridge, have it later.”

He tries to glide past the purpose of the second coffee in his hand, tries to play things off like everything’s normal but he sees Chris’s eyes narrow.

“That for her?” the other man asks, voice dropping until its barely a growl.  
Frank shakes his head, knowing instantly that he must lie if he wants to keep Chris’s suspicions, whatever they may be, at bay, keep the other man from thinking things that are absolutely not true, but which are threatening the unshakeable partnership they have, fracturing their trust. “Just a second for me,” he tells the other man with a little hitch of his shoulders, trying not to look guilty. “Twelve hours is a long, boring time to spend in silence. Plus, what, she’s gonna drink coffee through a straw? I’m really gonna hand her some near boiling liquid to maybe throw in my face? No thanks, man.”

Chris laughs, but there’s something forced, something rough about the sound, like he’s doing it more out of habit than anything else, than out of a real desire to laugh.

“I left some sandwiches upstairs for you and boss man,” Frank continues, trying to change the subject, move on to other things. “I did bring some of those for her though.”

The other man grunts, nods. “Cool. I threw her burrito in the fridge by the way. Figured it’ll be dinner for her tonight.”

“Martin didn’t mind you left her for a few minutes?” Frank asks casually, throwing a long look at Laurel, assessing, judging, trying to figure out whether this has lead to any further hurt.

“Nah,” Chris tells him. “Didn’t even notice I was gone.”

Frank hums, lets it go.

Chris takes a long moment to watch Frank through narrowed eyes. “See you on the other side.”

Frank watches him go, wishes he had more time than a couple of quick, stolen minutes to touch base with his partner, get on the same page, understand what they were both doing. But he can’t, not unless he wants Martin to come down and watch the girl, and he absolutely doesn't want that, doesn't want Martin anywhere near her, will sacrifice anything, everything to keep her safe, even if it means he and Chris never really understand what the other is doing on this job.

“So,” he says to Laurel once he hears Chris close the door behind him, slide the lock into place. “I didn’t bring any painkillers cause I just completely forgot. But I did bring something almost as good.”

He pulls out what he pilfered from Chris’s room, holds it up, watches as realization dawn on her face and she laughs. “What’re you fifteen?”

He grins, smirking, shocked and pleased that she’s still speaking to him. He had been half convinced she’d try to act like it was a one time thing, would clam up and retreat back into silence. But instead, instead she’s talking to him as though she never clung stubbornly, furiously to the one rebellion she was allowed. “I was once.”

He doesn't tell her about how pot was sometimes the only thing that got him through his darkest days in lockup, terrible shitty skunk weed that someone had smuggled though inspection secreted away in places Frank never wanted to think about, calming his rattling nerves, soothing his racing, panicked mind, easing the hundred thousand hurts that juvie, the other boys, the guards, had heaped on him.

“And,” he continues. “You’re not much more than that. You’re the perfect age to love weed.”

Laurel rolls her eyes but her grin remains. “I don’t really like how it makes me feel,” she tells him with a little hitch to her shoulders. “But, since I feel like shit right now, weed’ll probably only improve things.”

“Sounds like a ringing endorsement for getting stoned before dawn,” he laughs.

The girl’s eyes suddenly go sharp, focused, filled with a startling intensity that Frank gawks at. “I’ve been up for hours, we’ll pretend its afternoon for me,” she tells him, voice studiously casual, tight and tense and it eventually dawns on Frank what she’s doing, what she’s been focused on. She’s trying to hear the things he’s not saying, trying to calculate how many days she’s been kept in the basement.

He sighs, lips twisting. “Its about 6:00,” he tells her before he lets himself second guess his choices. “You’ve been down here three days now.”

Laurel’s jaw stiffens. “Ok.”

“Keeping you in the dark about time doesn't do anyone any favors,” he tells her, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, shoulders hunching in, suddenly uncomfortable, suddenly feeling like he’s taken her side in this fight that has no sides, no winners, feeling like he’s being pitted against Chris, his best friend, who has an entirely different idea about what this job means, about how they have to treat Laurel.

“I don’t know if it doesn't do me a favor,” Laurel says, eyes fixed on her feet.

“You want me to uncuff you?” he asks, letting her silence go, her sudden shift in mood, towards darkness. “Let you have breakfast?”

She nods, minutely.

“Then we can focus on getting you stoned,” he says with a grin that goes just a little too wide, a little too eager. He’s more excited than he ought to be to see Laurel stoned, to see her maybe relax some of the iron grip she has on her emotions, the rigid control she brings to everything.

“Lets just stick to coffee right now, yeah?” she asks, glancing up, her smile small and thin lipped and tentative.

“Yeah,” Frank nods, circling around to snap the tie around her good wrist. “That your drug of choice then? Caffeine?”

“Definitely,” she agrees, flexing her wrists, her shoulder, working the tense, tired muscles, getting her blood flowing again. “I don’t sleep much. Even at the best of times.”

He grabs one of the breakfast sandwiches, hands it to Laurel, watches as she unwraps it with her teeth. “I have sugar and creamer if you want it.”

She smiles, almost guilty, soft and shy. “I’m good, thanks.”

He goes to hand her the spare coffee but she pulls back, shakes her head, eyes downcast. “I didn’t poison it or anything.”

“I don’t want to get more dehydrated,” she explains, taking another bite of the sandwich. “And the last thing I need is to be crawling out of my skin more than I already am.”

Frank hums. “Don’t have to finish the whole thing,” he suggests.

“I’m alright,” she assures him. “Just some water, please?”

“Sure,” he tells her, going to his little stash of supplies, fishing out a bottle for her. “Olaf offer you anything when he was down here?”

She laughs, light and sharp, pleased that he remembered. “He and I are still getting our bearings,” she says, emphasizing the phrase as though its some terrible euphemism.

“What does that mean?” he asks, almost too casually, needing to know if Chris’s done anything to hurt her, anything to jeopardize the strange, tentative peace he thinks he might be finding with her.

Laurel shrugs, too casual herself. “It means the two of us haven't been doing much talking. Not till I can figure out some things.”

“You willing to tell me what those things are?” he asks, giving her a wide, inviting grin, the most charming smile he can summon.

“Same things I needed to figure out with you,” is all she says as she secures the water bottle in the crook of her elbow, uncaps it.

“You really don’t want to elaborate, do you?”

“No,” she tells him frankly. “And the luxury to not elaborate was one of the things I needed to figure out with you. Before anything could go forward.”

“I barely know what that means,” he confesses, except well, that’s not entirely true. He thinks he knows exactly what it means. Before she could give him any ground she had to see if he was willing to do the same, allow her small victories, allow her to make her own choices, sometimes, where she was able, willing to let himself cede power, not much, but enough, willing to respect her enough not to push, force her just because he could. He understands, maybe all too well, would fight endlessly losing battles against guards, against other prisoners who tried to use their authority, their power, their greater stature within the messy, chaotic world of the juvenile detention facility to make Frank comply. He would destroy himself in order to resist, one of the worst traits he never really grew out of, learned how to unlearn, would resist until there was nothing left in him.

And yet, the guards, the other boys, the moment they were willing to show respect, willing to allow Frank to make his own choices on the little things, willing to allow him autonomy where it wouldn't hurt them, well, then Frank was willing to comply where it did matter. It was easy, he realized later, once he got out and got his head on straight, easy and nothing more than simple psychology and it always, always worked, works on Laurel, even if she can see what's happening just as clearly as he can.

She knows what he’s doing, that much is clear, but she’s doing the same thing, holding out until she can get some concessions, where she’s able, claim some victory for herself, let herself feel powerful where she once felt powerless, still is powerless, really, but not entirely.

“You don’t need to,” she tells him, shaking her head, though a small, bright smile slips across her face like she knows he’s lying, knows he understands exactly what's happening between them, the shifting battle lines being redrawn, or perhaps blurred out entirely, erased. “Just me.”

“Sounds fair,” he chuckles, grabbing his own greasy sandwich, biting through half of it, startled at how terrible it tastes lukewarm. He’s gotten soft, he thinks idly, in the couple years he’s been out of juvie, gotten soft and spoiled. Before Frank doubts he’d even notice the taste, the temperature of the food, just pack as many calories into his body as possible, unwilling and unable to care about much else. Now, well, now, he wants to have everything he missed, wants to make up for lost time, have as much good, hot food as he can.

The life of a petty criminal doesn't often allow him to get much beyond burgers and pizza, but he at least tries to eat his food hot. This, this sandwich, is getting him too close to a place he has left behind, a place he refuses to return to.

“Bacon’s not supposed to be soggy,” he says around a mouthful of sandwich, not sure why he gives voice to the thought, but unable to keep silent about it.

“When it comes from a gas station it is,” Laurel offers, not appearing terribly concerned about the bacon, still chewing slowly at her own sandwich.

“Shoulda took the time to find something better,” he grumbles, though he fishes a second out of the bag, tears into it.

"Well,” Laurel says, her grin suddenly sharp. “You could let me make some suggestions.”

Frank rolls his eyes, knowing exactly where her restless mind is headed, knowing exactly the places it races to. Its all the places his mind, used to years of calculations, plans, plots is racing, wondering what kind of information he’s given away to her, what weaknesses he may have exposed, like every conversation is a chess game, a battle, a war to be won. “Like I’m giving you any hint where we’re at.”

She huffs, but the grin still remains, choosing, though she doesn't have to, to keep the mood light, choosing not to get angry, though she has every right to be. Because he still has all the power, all the control, though he’s ceding more and more to her, where he can, even though it’s all by his choice. She could be angry, bitter about that, retreat into sullen silence, but instead she chooses to grin, chooses to continue talking, teasing him, chooses something other than fierce silence and rage. “Then I guess its breakfast sandwiches from here on out.”


	12. Chapter 12

“That or leftover burritos,” he offers. “Wildly inappropriate breakfast food goes well with getting stoned before the sun’s really up.”

Laurel laughs again, ruefully. “You’re a pretty terrible influence, in addition to being a pretty terrible kidnapper,” she tells him, an edge to the teasing in her voice and yet her words are slow and sweet, almost heavy with something Frank refuses to call affection.

“Guess I just haven’t found my calling yet,” he tells her with a little shrug.

“If that’s what we’re gonna call it,” she tells him, leaning back against the chair slats. “C’mon Lars, you gonna do me a solid and get this other arm?”

“I’ll do you one better,” he offers. “If you’re willing to have me tie your wrists in front, I’ll let you outta the chair too. I bet your knees are killing you.”

Laurel inclines her head in the closest thing to agreement he know’s he’s going to get out of her. She won’t admit any weakness, not about this, not about the damage, the stress this kidnapping is putting her body under. They’ve reached a truce, an armistice, though he suspects Laurel would refuse to characterize it as such, but its tentative, fragile and it certainly doesn’t include her admitting to any pain beyond the obvious, the pain she simply can’t hide from her wrist, her hand. He’s not so stupid as to think she’ll admit to wanting her legs free, willing only to allow Frank to free them if he chooses and not because she wanted it.

“Sound good?”

Her lips quirk again, face strenuously neutral.

“Good enough for me,” he tells her, waiting while she wedges the water bottle, the remains of her sandwich against her hip, securing them in place. He cuts the bond securing her swollen wrist to the chair slats, the skin turning towards dark blues, blacks that make the skin look almost rotten, like there’s nothing beneath the surface but death, corruption. “You sure that thing’s doing ok?”

Her shoulders hitch, but Frank can see the tightness around her eyes, in her jaw, the long, graceful curve of her neck; pain, he thinks, and badly hidden. “Why? Will saying it’s not change anything?”

“No,” Frank admits, as he secures her wrists together, one tie around her good wrist, the other connecting them, a strange daisy chain designed to trap and bind. “It probably won’t. Though it is a good excuse to get high.”

She scowls, face transforming suddenly into something hard, almost cruel. “I’m kidnapped, asshole. I don’t think I need an excuse to want to escape from reality.”

“You’re right,” he agrees. “You don’t. You never needed one. Now don’t kick me if I unzip your legs.”

She snorts. “It’d serve you right,” she tells him. “My nose is killing me. And I’m pretty sure I can’t breathe because there’s blood clogging everything.”

He wants to continue the moment, the joke, the teasing thing that churns and boils between them, wants to ask her how her nose is his fault, but he balks at the last second, holds back because it is his fault, his fault for coming up behind her as she was running, tasing her, the thousands of volts running through her body robbing her muscles of tension, control, the ability to respond to her brain’s commands.

“You can go ahead and pick your nose if you want,” he tells her instead, crooked grin slipping across his face. “Get all the blood out. I won’t tell anyone.”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “No thanks.”

He grins wider. “I don’t want to be held responsible when you can’t breathe. It’s my duty to get you to pick your nose.”

Her face scrunches, nose crinkling and lips twisting and Frank is struck by the fact that he has been in Laurel’s almost constant presence for going on three days now, has spent more than twenty four hours in her company now and there are still an entire range of emotions he’s only just now seeing, being introduced to, entire expressions that completely catch him off guard, unexpected on her already familiar face, whole new worlds of emotion and expression blooming behind her eyes like some strange, wild species of flower hidden in plain sight. “Get me stoned enough, who knows what’ll happen.”

“That a challenge,” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows as he kneels in front of her, feels a little like he’s prostrating himself, a supplicant at the feet of the god he worships. He swallows down the feeling, whatever it is, quickly snaps the ties around her ankles and steps back.

“Might be,” she tells him casually, flexing her ankles slowly, rolling the socket back and forth, up and down, coaxing feeling back into her toes. “You up for it, Lars?”

“Oh, I’m always up for it,” he tells her, stomach lurching wildly as he realizes he’s flirting with her, with this girl who still has zip ties around her wrist, still two dark smudges of bruises under her eyes, who still doesn’t have a cast around her wrist, who still can’t go home because he and Chris and Martin haven’t been paid yet. He feels sick, disgusting, degraded, filled with loathing for the pathetic base creature he is, controlled only by animal instincts. He can’t flirt with Laurel, can’t really even let himself like her, there is no place in the world for that, no space in which that will be anything other than horrible, than a stupid decision that hurt him, hurts her, that ignores all the ways he’s hurting her with every second that ticks forward, all the ways in which it overlooks everything ugly, everything he doesn’t want to notice, doesn’t want to think about.

But the truth remains that there is not a universe in which he should be flirting with Laurel, this girl under his control, his watch, this girl he’s ruining, damaging, shattering into shards sharp and shining. He cannot, can not, be flirting with her, allowing his mind to see her as anything but cargo, a body, a means to an end, fungible goods that he will eventually turn into cash. He cannot be letting himself think of her as anything else, as a friend, or more, as a girl who is funny and whip smart and filled with prickling intensity. And yet, he has. It’s already too late because he’s already let himself think of her that way, as something more than a charge to be watched, babysat.

All the things that Chris was warning about, the distance he made clear Frank needed to maintain, well, all that’s gone out the window, tossed without a second glance and now Frank’s in so deep he’s not sure he isn’t drowning, not sure there’s any way out.

He swallows thickly around the things like worry, like guilt, like loathing that rage through his blood, choke his breath, tells himself he won’t do anything half so stupid again, knows he’s just lying.

Laurel gets to her feet while he’s focused on other things, letting out a long slow breath, a hiss like steam escaping a vent, as she does, as her stiff knees protest. “You assholes better not screw up my chances at a track scholarship,” she tells him, voice like a sigh, taking slow, tentative steps back and forth along the concrete.

“I’m pretty sure you don’t have much need of financial aid,” Frank points out, swallowing back all the feelings churning in his gut, forcing himself to focus on other things, focus on her voice, her words.

“I do if I want to get out of Florida,” she tells him, scowl flitting across her face. “Money’s how my dad controls people. And I’m not going to let him control me.”

“You don’t think you're gonna owe him for getting you outta this one?”

Laurel fixes him with a deep cutting look, slicing against the places in him that are thinnest, weakest. “I’m in this one because of him too. Or was that not what Sven’s phone call was all about?”

“I, yeah,” Frank admits, realizing she’s right, that despite the fact that Jorge Castillo is ultimately the only one that can save her, she is, at the end of the day, only here because of him, subjected to this ordeal, this long, slow torture, because of the things her father has done. She has every right to blame him even if he’s her only hope of salvation, of rescue. She can still blame him for being the reason she needs rescue at all. “Yeah, it was.”

“Thought so,” she nods stiffly.

“I thought you didn't expect him to pay up,” Frank continues.

“I don’t,” Laurel agrees. “But one doesn't have anything to do with the other. You don’t know much about him, do you?”

“Only what I could find on the internet,” he confesses. “But I have the general idea.”

Laurel laughs, huffing, mocking, still pacing, rolling her right arm at the shoulder as though to get the muscles uncramped.

Her left arm, Frank notices, she still curves against her chest, and every few steps her right arm moves to cradle it, protect it against her skin, soothe the pain, desperate and craving. “You don’t know anything.”

“More true than not,” he agrees.

“I feel sorry for you,” Laurel tells him, pausing in her pacing, turning to look at Frank, watch him with those fierce blue eyes, curious expression on her face. “I don’t know how you got into this mess, but I feel bad that you are. You seem like a nice guy, you don’t deserve this.”

“Isn't shitty so far,” he points out.

“It will be,” she tells him, words like a vow, a promise. “If you knew my father, you’d know that much.”

“Can’t do anything about it now,” he shrugs, refusing to think about all the ways things can go south, the way the fragile bubble can burst, shattered by violence or imprisonment, the disaster coming for one of them.  
Laurel hums, turns back around and resumes her pacing. “No, I suppose that’s true too.”

“Do we need to get you a treadmill down here or something?” he asks after long moments spent watching her pacing back and forth along the basement floor.

“Sorry,” she tells him, sheepish, eyes slipping away from his but it picks up again after a few moments. “I can’t help it. I’m used to running everyday, every other if things get busy. Five miles at least. And add that to being tied up, not being able to really move. This is, I’m crawling out of my skin here.”

He hears the long shake of her exhale, trembling and uncertain. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. “Any way I can help that?”

“Not unless you were serious about that treadmill.”

“I’ll talk to Sven,” he tells her with an eye roll. “See if he’ll let me expense one.”

“I doubt that guy’ll let you expense breakfast,” Laurel says, throwing a sullen look towards the stairs.

“Speaking of,” he tells her. “I oughta look into that, make sure I’m not out $20 on food.”

“Oh?” she asks sarcastically. “That’s the worst thing that’s coming to you out of this mess?”

“I,” he startles. “No. Sorry. That was…stupid I guess. Stupid.”

“No,” she tells him sighing heavily, running her good hand through her hair. “That was me, I’m sorry.”

He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to react to this girl apologizing to him, this girl who has no power, no autonomy, and yet she’s choosing to apologize where Frank thinks he’d just be furious, burning with rage.

“Tell me about the expense policies for criminal enterprises,” she tells him after making another few passes over the basement. “Are you allowed to comp different things for different crimes?”

“Probably?” he shrugs. “Doubt anyone’d appreciate me expensing pizza delivery at a bank robbery.”

Laurel laughs. “You ever rob a bank?” she asks, curious look passing across her face, curious and eager.

“I may have,” he tells her. “Though I’m fairly certain I don’t want to give you anymore information than that.”

“You really think I’m going to the FBI with some vague lead that a scruffy man who kidnapped me might be a bank robber too?” she scoffs. “You really think I care?”

“Dunno,” he tells her. “I don’t know you well enough to judge your commitment to truth and justice.”

“And the American way?” she asks with an ironic turn of her lips.

“Or something,” he agrees. “Speaking of the American way, you ready for that weed yet?”

She turns, pauses in her pacing to look at him, arms flinging out by her sides. “Why’re you so focused on getting me stoned?” she asks.

“Too much?” he asks as he settles against the ground, back against the rough concrete wall.

She nods, teeth sinking into her lower lip. “Yeah, a little.”

“Sorry.”

“Its,” she shrugs. “I get that your intentions are good. Or, well, I think they are, but I’m the one in pain here, remember. If I think I can cope with the pain, don’t try to get me stoned just so you don’t have to feel so guilty about it.”

“Sorry,” he tells her again.

“You’re cute you know,” she tells him after another long moment spent watching him, still chewing nervously at the soft flesh of her lower lip. “How concerned you are about me being in pain. It’s…it’s a little absurd honestly, since it’s your fault and you can’t really do anything about it. But it is kinda cute.”

She saunters towards him, a dangerous look in her eyes, wild and bladed and he can see a hint of teeth behind her smile, his heart stumbling and tripping against his chest.

“You really are the worst kidnapper,” Laurel tells him as she gets closer, almost close enough that he could reach out and touch her. He swallows thickly against the building desire, turns his hands into fists so he can keep from reaching out. “And you really ought to work on that guilt you’re carrying around.”

“I’m not,” he stutters, telling himself its because she’s so close, the closest she’s ever been to him voluntarily, he thinks, hovering about a foot away, close enough he can see the dusting of freckles across her nose, freckles Frank finds himself wanting to map, wanting to know if they have cousins running across her shoulders, forcing himself to look away before his eyes drift.

“You are,” Laurel tells him, voice like a sigh. “You’re guilty about all this, guiltier because you know it’s going to end badly. For you, for me. And it is.”

She turns then, sits down against the cold floor, struggling for a moment as she figures out how to use her bound wrists to steady herself. Slowly she lowers her back to the floor, sighing in something like relief as she stretches out flat, eyes slipping closed and for a moment, just a moment, but one that stretches out, thin and brittle between them, Frank sees the beginnings of tears in her eyes, relief, maybe, instead of grief.

“It’s not ending badly,” he assures her again, though every time he speaks those words they catch in his throat like a lie. Maybe if he believes them enough, Frank thinks, maybe then they’ll come true.

Laurel turns her head, looks at him with eyes that barely blink, eyes that slice through the layers of lies, of falsehoods, of careful deliberate ignorance he wraps himself in and smiles, thin and ironic. “If you say so.”

She turns her head away, closing her eyes again and she’s motionless for so long that Frank wonders if she’s not asleep, her bound hands together against her chest, almost like a corpse, her injured arm cradled against the center of her chest, nestled as close to her heart as she could bring it.

“You taking a nap?” he asks her.

“I am,” she confirms, voice rough and low though she doesn't open her eyes, doesn't turn towards his voice. “Or I’m trying.”

“Need a blanket?”

“Couldn't hurt,” she tells him, though doesn't seem terribly excited about the idea of a blanket.

“I’ll go grab one,” he offers. “But if you move you’re going back in the chair.”

This time she turns and looks at him, eyes cold. “Where’m I gonna go?”

“That’d be up to you,” he shrugs, getting to his feet slowly. “But do you want the blanket or not?”

Laurel sighs, closes her eyes again. “I’ll be here.”

He heads upstairs slowly, cautiously, listening for any footfalls above him, any sign that Martin or Chris are in the kitchen, going to spot him dragging down a blanket for the girl. He locks the door behind him, makes sure it will be at least a few minutes before Laurel can get free if she tries anything.

He finds an extra blanket in the closet, creeps back downstairs, finds Laurel in the same position he left her.

Her eyes are closed and her breath comes slow and deep and even. Asleep, he thinks, deep enough she doesn't even hear him return.

Frank grins despite himself, gently drapes the blanket across her body, coming up just below her chin, watching as she sighs, seems to sink down into the blankets. He settles himself back against the wall, cracks his book open and sips idly at his coffee.

She wakes a few hours later, Frank’s not sure exactly when, but suddenly her voice cuts across his thoughts.

“Hey,” Frank hears, eyes flicking up to see Laurel watching him, turned on her side and her knees drawn up to her chest under the blanket. “Thanks for the blanket.”

“No problem,” he tells her. “Sleep ok?”

“Yeah,” she nods, sliding into a sitting position, keeping the blanket wrapped around her thin body, her bound hands tugging at the edges until she gets the cocoon around her shoulders exactly right. “How long was I out for?”

“Bout three hours I think,” Frank lets her know. “Go back to sleep if you want. I’ll wake you up an hour or two before shift change.”

Laurel hums, pulls the blanket over her head so that only her face remains exposed, just her pale face, wide blue eyes. “I’m gonna eat I think.”

Frank gets to his feet, grabs the remains of her sandwich, her water bottle, hands them over to Laurel. “You think its still good?”

Laurel shrugs, mound of blankets shuddering with her movements. “Hasn’t been long enough to go bad,” she pronounces with something like certainty.

She takes a long drink of water, finishes off the bottle. “Another?” he asks her.

“Wouldn't say no,” she replies as she unwraps the leftovers of her sandwich.

He takes out another, rolls it along the floor to her, until it impacts softly with her blanket covered knees.

“You started another book,” she says around a mouthful of food.

“I did,” Frank confirms.

“It any good?” she continues.

Frank shrugs. “Good so far. But I’m not that far into it.”

“You going to keep reading to me to pass the time?”

“As long as you don’t mind it,” he answers, watching her reaction for any hint of annoyance, disgust, anything that suggests he should keep his reading silent from here on out.

“I don’t,” she tells him simply. “What’s it about?”

“Crime and Punishment,” he tells her, holding up the front of the book. “No one’s made you read it for school yet?”

She inclines her head slightly. “Can’t say that they have.”

“Maybe you’re going to the wrong school,” he teases.

Laurel laughs, quick and breathless. “Oh, I’m certain that’s true.”

“I read it first when I was about your age I think,” he tells her. He leaves out the fact that he’d first picked it up as a joke in juvie, intrigued by the title, not understanding the themes, the symbolism, but descending rapidly into the world created by the novel, able to forget about his own troubles, his own worries and the cinderblock walls around him while he was reading.

She rolls her eyes, teasing. “Like you're that much older than me.”

“Five, six years,” he says, not really willing to give her more information about his age, any identifying details, still cautious about giving her anything that can lead to getting him in trouble later on, lead to finding him, limiting his freedom. “That’s old enough.”

She snorts. “You trying to convince me you're old and wise and mature? Is about the least mature thing I’ve seen in a while.”

He chuckles. “I’m gonna go back to my book if you're gonna just insult me.”

“Not insulting you,” she says, her grin crooked. “Just pointing out facts.”

His head swims, realizing again that they’re flirting, that he can’t help flirting with her, can’t resist the pull she has over him.

No matter what he does, he’s drawn in by her, caught off guard, like a sudden, sheer drop. He tries to keep his guard up, tries to keep his distance from her, but he can’t. Laurel simply bowls past whatever barriers he puts up between them, simply looks at them and they collapse, crumple like twigs, like paper. She just slides past his defenses like she’s a knife, honed perfectly to cut him where he’s most vulnerable.

“Your facts sound pretty similar to insults,” he tells her anyway, trying to convince himself its safe, that it doesn't mean anything, knowing even as he speaks that its not true.

She chuckles, pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Can I get another sandwich?”

“Yeah, totally,” he tells her, reaching into the bag, pulling out one of the cold sandwiches, tossing it over to her.

She glares as the foil smacks her chest, falls into her lap, but tucks in once she picks up the sandwich. “These things are so gross.”

“No one’s forcing you to eat them,” he points out.

“Not gross enough I’m not gonna eat them when I’m hungry.”

Frank hums. “Well what do you want for dinner then?” he asks her. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Italian,” she says without pause, without anything like hesitation. “Definitely. Pasta and garlic bread.”

His stomach flips because no, it doesn't matter, it doesn't mean anything, and yet he can’t help but wonder if it does. She has no idea he’s Italian, no idea that she’s basically asking for all his favorite foods and yet Frank can’t help but think it’s a sign of some kind. “Italian huh?” he asks, because he can’t help but dig further, can’t help but try and find out the things it might mean. “That your favorite?”

Laurel shakes her head slightly, smiles ruefully. “No, but I doubt you’ve even heard of a pupusa, so we’ll go with Italian instead.”

“You saying I’m an uneducated gringo?” he laughs.

“If the shoe fits,” she tells him, that teasing note creeping into her voice, that thing almost like flirting. He forces himself to look away, unable to meet her eyes, unable to stare too closely at the things he thinks may be brewing between them. “But for right now, I just want something rich and heavy and flavorful.”

“You wanna just forget you’re here,” Frank finishes for her, the heavy weight of reality intruding again, settling low in his gut. “You want comfort food.”

She nods, eyes downcast as she tightens her hold around the blankets, drawing further into the little nest she’s created around herself. But then suddenly, she looks up, fierce strength back in her eyes. “I want to go home,” she corrects sharply, voice thick. “That’s what I want.”

“You know,” he starts.

“Yeah,” she cuts him off with a scoff. “I know you can’t do that. Doesn't mean I don’t want it.”

He scowls, looks down at his hands. “You said something about papooses? Papusas?”

“Pupusas,” Laurel corrects.

“Pupusas,” he repeats. “You want those? I’ll bring you them too. Whatever you want. I’ll track it down.”

Laurel just nods, holds his eyes until he’s forced to glance away from the intensity in the blue of her eyes. “Ok.”

“For dinner,” he explains. “And I’ll try to make another deal with Olaf so I can keep you out of cuffs while you eat.”

“That’s, thanks.”

“Are there different flavors of pupusas or something?” he asks her, trying to distract her with talk of food, get her to stop thinking about impossible things, freedom and home, and focused on things that are within her reach. “Tell me what you want?”

Laurel smiles then though her jaw remains tight. “I’ll be impressed by any pupusas you manage to track down.”

“You’d be surprised,” he says, letting a smirk sneak back onto his face, hopes he can lighten the mood again. “In my normal life, I’m pretty good at tracking obscure things down.”

“So this isn't your normal job?” she asks rolling her eyes at him, though he thinks he can detect a hint of teasing undercutting her words, like a river surging through underground caverns deep below the earth. “You're not a professional kidnapper?”

“Was it that obvious?” he throws at her, his own sarcasm eating through his words like acid.

She makes a little huffing noise, almost like a laugh, though her eyes roll again and Frank can still see the tightness in her limbs. “You’re the worst kidnapper of all time.”

“Oh, so you’ve met many?”

“No,” she tells him, her voice suddenly icy, no longer anything approaching teasing remaining in her words. “No, you're the first asshole to do something this awful.”

“I…,” he starts, words sticking is his throat as he tries to apologize, not sure how he can apologize again for something he’s already done, something Frank thinks he’d probably do again but which is awful, unforgivable, which has shattered this girl’s entire world. He’s about to stumble out another apology, seek more penance but he hears the lock scraping against the door. “Fuck.”

Laurel’s eyes are wide, shot through with fear as she tosses the blanket off her body, scrambling to her feet so fast he hears the sharp cry of pain as she goes. “Fuck,” she echoes, holding out her hands to him, desperate and shaking. “Please.”

“I got you,” Frank promises as he cuts the tie between her wrists with a flick of his, listening intently to the sound of the door creaking open, to footfalls on the landing. “I got you, I promise.”

Her body trembles, shaking and fearful, he can feel the shaking under her skin like an earthquake, like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings against his fingers. And yet, she pulls her hands away from him slowly, almost reluctantly, fingertips brushing his palm, his fingertips slowly as she goes, sits back against the hated chair.

He gets her ankles first, hands fumbling with the zip ties, still buzzing with the feel of her skin against his, making his fingers clumsy and tingling. “Wrists,” he demands urgently once her legs are secure, voice barely a whisper but skating across her skin like blades.

He ties them too, zips the tie tight, tighter than he really wanted in his urgency, fear shattering through him, wondering what Chris’s going to think of catching him hurriedly securing her a second time, wondering if the other man will put two and two together, realize that Laurel is rarely tied up when she’s down with Frank, when its his turn to watch her.

He scrambles back on his heels, scrambles back until his back hits the wall, tries to steady his breathing until it stops hammering in his chest, pounding against his rib cage like it wants to flee his chest.

And then the pounding intensifies, a jackhammer through his chest because Martin comes into view at the bottom of the steps. Laurel’s eyes flick to his, desperate and pleading and he meets her gaze, a promise in his. She remains still, perfectly still and Frank can’t tell whether that’s a deliberate choice or if she’s simply frozen with fear.

“Hey man,” Frank says, trying to get the other man’s attention away from Laurel for as long as he can. “What’s going on?”

“We’re going to make a video, Laurel and I,” he says casually, holding up his phone in one hand. “To remind her father that time is of the essence.”

Frank nods, clenching his jaw tight. “Cool.”

“You can leave if you’d like,” Martin offers, eyes flicking to the stairs.

“No,” Frank tells him a little too quickly. “I’ll stay here I think.”

Martin gives him a sharp look, eyes narrowed, but simply nods. “Stay silent please.”

He shrugs, settles further into the wall, sets and waits, cautious and watchful and ready to protect Laurel where he can, when he can.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter Frank proceeds to make even more good/bad decisions like its his job...and Laurel continues to own him like its HER job...

“Now,” Martin says, smiling fondly down at Laurel like she’s a well trained, obedient pet. “I know you prefer to stay silent, but you’re the star of this video and I need you to perform. Is that going to be a problem, Ms. Castillo?”

Laurel glares at Martin, her mouth shut tight and defiant.

“Laurel,” he warns, takes another step towards her.

“No,” she growls finally. “It won’t be a problem.”

“Perfect,” Martin tells her, hands clasped behind his back as he rocks back on his heels. “Now, I’d like it if you started out by saying your name, the date and time please.”

“I don’t know that,” she tells him, voice low and murderous. “The date and time.”

Martin hums, smiles wide. “No, I suppose you don’t. Its October 28th. The time is approximately 11:20.”

“What else?” Laurel snaps.

“I would like you to let your father know that it will be Halloween very shortly.”

“Somehow I think he knows that without my telling him,” Laurel tells him sarcastically, daring to roll her eyes, a little scoff slipping from her lips.

Martin’s mouth twists, something mean coming into his eyes. He takes another step closer to Laurel, watching her flinch away from him. “Don’t do that again,” he tells her. “Or there will have to be punishment.”

Laurel frowns but meets Martin’s eyes, nods reluctantly.

“Let him know that please,” Martin says again. “Let him know that if I don’t have my money by then I’m going to kill you.”

Laurel blanches, body going completely still, so completely unmoving Frank doesn't think she even breathes. Martin’s voice is slow and calm, almost deliberate but there is something certain in his words that makes Frank’s stomach clench in worry. 

“If you’d like, you can inform him of what’s happened so far, let him know I’m not bluffing. If I don’t have my money by the 31st, that’s the end of the line. For you, for him. I won’t even tell him where your body is.”

Laurel’s eyes slide to Frank, seeking, he thinks, the truth of Martin’s words, seeking reassurance or confirmation, seeking an ally. He wishes he could reassure her, tell her that its not true, that Martin is just bluffing, but he can’t. Martin isn’t bluffing, Frank is certain he isn’t, though he barely knows more about the man than Laurel does, certain that Martin will kill Laurel if he doesn't have his money by the end of this sudden, arbitrary deadline. He doesn't know Martin well, but he knows, already, what kind of man Martin is and Frank knows it is the kind of man that doesn't shy away from violence, that will not hesitate to hurt, to kill if he is disrespected, if his wishes are not followed exactly, meticulously. No, Martin will kill Laurel, that is certain, unless Jorge Castillo complies immediately with Martin’s demands.

“Do you think you can do that?” Martin asks, though his tone is much less question than demand, his eyes cold and calculating.

Laurel nods, minutely, her eyes hard, as much defiance as she can summon across her face.

“Perfect,” Martin smiles more like a grimace, grin slanting and almost pleased. “Remember, October 28th, 11:20.”

He holds up his camera, inclines his head, ensuring Laurel is ready.

She deflates, shoulders sagging and lets out a long slow breath. “My name’s Laurel Castillo,” she says slowly, voice steady and cold. “I’ve been told its October 28, at about 11:20. A.m., I think. The people who kidnapped me, they told me to say that you have until Halloween to pay them. If you haven't by then, they’re going to kill me.”

As she speaks, Frank watches her, watches her movements, the clear defiance in her blue eyes, the sharp clench of her jaw and yet, her body shakes, leg jumping in fear, trembling in a strange shaking rhythm. Except, Frank thinks, he’s no longer sure its involuntary, no longer sure the tremble in her leg is out of fear. Because there’s a deliberateness to it, he realizes, an intention behind when her knee bounces, when her foot taps against the concrete floor. It looks like fear, Frank realizes, but its not. No, the longer he pays attention, the longer he focuses on the percussive knock against the floor, listens to her movements, it comes to him. Slowly, not a sharp realization, but slowly, like peeling away layers of paper, layers of things that hide the truth from view.

Its been years now, long enough for things to have slipped in the back of his mind, covered up by more important more pressing matters, sinking down to the murky depths of his subconscious. But the recognition is still there, lurking, ready to be summoned. And the longer he listens to her movements, the closer the truth comes, tentative and hesitation, but slinks ever closer as long as Frank is willing to wait for it, a timid animal not yet willing to trust him.

Morse Code. The thought comes to him slowly, like a sigh, like sinking slowly beneath the surface of placid water, the rhythmic, staccato taps of her feet coalescing into letters, into words, into meaning.

_Still in Palm Beach. House. Basement. Near Graciela’s._

The message repeats, again and again, tapped out against the basement floor. Not much information, but a start, a lead for anyone trying to find her, free her. He lifts his eyes from her feet to Laurel’s face, finds her watching him out of the corner of her eye, cautious and wary. She stumbles slightly as he stares at her, but doesn't stop, just raises her chin and continues the quick, fluttering movement of her foot against the ground, tapping out a quick, shifting rhythm.

He wants to pretend that she doesn't realize he knows, can’t, can’t lie to himself about what she understands, what she can see in his eyes. She’s not going to stop, not going to balk, just going to continue on, tapping out her message, until someone stops her. Until Frank stops her because Martin doesn't seem to notice, doesn't seem to realize that the tapping of her foot against the floor is not because of nerves, fear but a message, tapped out against the floor, sent into the universe for someone anyone to notice, come rescue her.

And so, Frank has a choice to make, only two options open to him. Let her continue or make her stop. He doesn't know how to do the latter without drawing Martin’s attention to her, to what she’s doing, to the message she’s trying to send into the world along with the one she’s being forced to convey. And he knows he can’t let her continue, can’t let her do anything, however slight, however vague, to draw the police, draw disaster around this enterprise, this ongoing disaster of a crime. But he can’t make her stop, can’t allow more violence to settle around her shoulders, can’t give Martin an excuse to break her other wrist, send more punches against her side. He can’t let her get hurt more, not in the way he knows Martin will hurt her.

And Laurel, Laurel doesn't beg him to stay quiet, doesn't implore him to silence, just meets his eyes and dares him to speak, dares him to sell her out, to betray her. And he can’t, much as Frank knows he ought to, he can’t bring himself to speak, to draw Martin’s attention to what Laurel’s up to. She doesn't know anything, not really, isn't giving anyone information that can be used to find them, even if anyone noticed. They’re not going to search every basemented house in Palm Beach, not going to know anymore than the police likely suspected already. But he can’t let her continue, can’t let her pass any information along, no matter how small, how seemingly useless. He can’t let her pass any information along, knows he needs to stop her, knows he needs to make his choice and choose his partners, choose Chris and Martin and their safety, their success.

But instead he remains silent, says nothing, lets her continue to send her message out into the world until she’s said everything Martin requires of her, until she falls silent, until he lowers his phone with a smile.

Frank’s making a choice, he knows, making a choice and choosing Laurel, choosing her over his partners, Chris, his brother, over himself really, choosing her always, to keep her safe, to protect her. He doesn't know why, doesn't know what compels him to stay silent, to put her first, but he does, knows he will, always. There’s just something in her that is impossible for him to resist, that follows her will, her wants, always, no matter how badly it will fall back on him, no matter what disaster it spells for Frank himself, for his plans, his intentions. Laurel always comes first, he thinks, always, his own needs nothing compared to hers, meaningless, unimportant trifles. 

And this decision he knows, can feel in his bones, solidly, certainly, is irrevocable, one he can’t take back, can’t reconsider.

Frank has made his choice, has sided with Laurel, against himself, his own interests, ambitions, against his team, his partners, and he can’t take it back, can’t decide he doesn't mean it. He’s chosen Laurel and every decision he makes from this point on will be in service of that choice. Its like two paths were laid out before him and he chose one and now, well, now the way back is blocked and he can only move forward, only continue to follow to the place where his choices have lead. He won’t, can’t look back, doesn't want to because he knows he would make the choice again, knows he will make it every time. His bones are Laurel’s, his blood is hers. He is hers, every time. He doesn't know what it means, but he knows its true. Frank knows that much.

“I think,” Martin is telling her, smile slipping across his face. “That should be good. Very good. I think we’ll be hearing from your father shortly with a performance like that.”

He puts his phone away in his pocket, takes a step towards Laurel, his grin growing wider as she twists way from him.

“I would’ve preferred more tears though,” he tells her, grasping her face between his fingers, twisting her chin so she meets his eyes. Frank wonders at first if she’s going to spit, try to bite him, curse him, something, but instead Laurel’s jaw remains clamped tight and her glare sharp enough to cut glass as she retreats into silence, stillness. “If we make another video for your father, I’ll need some tears.”

His eyes flick to Frank, slide back to Laurel, his hands against her fingers digging into the sharp angle of her chin, until he can see her wince in pain. “Don’t make me be the one to create the tears, alright?”

Laurel nods, defiance in every line of her body even as she forces herself to comply with his demands, even as she realizes there can be no resistance, not in the way she wants.

“I’ll be down if I need more,” he throws at Frank, twisting Laurel’s jaw again, twisting her neck until she hisses in pain. “I’ll update you with any news.”

Frank nods stiffly, waits until Martin has retreated upstairs, until the lock has slid into place, until silence descends into the basement, heavy and echoing like the stillness, the absence after deep, tolling bells have gone quiet.

The girl just holds his gaze, blue and flashing and sharp, just holds his eyes like a challenge, like a dare.

“What were you thinking?” Frank asks finally, scrubbing a hand through his beard so he keeps from scowling, keeps from getting angry. It would be so, so easy to get angry. Laurel has forced him to make a choice he wasn't ready to make yet, wasn’t prepared to make and now, now he needs to understand, needs to know it was worth it. He needs to know that choosing her was worth it.

“That I can’t wait around for a rescue that’s not coming,” she shrugs, eyes sliding away from his, sliding towards the staircase, still watchful and wary of Martin. “That I’m gonna have to rescue myself.”

“You think anyone’s gonna notice that shit?” he scoffs.

Something shifts in the air then, shifts between them like the quick, breathless puff of air as a flame ignites. Her eyes return to his, full of poison. “You did,” she counters, small smile full of mockery, derision playing around her lips.

“And if I was anyone else you’d have a second broken wrist,” he tells her, voice rough, stepping forward, arms crossed over his chest menacingly. “I ought to do something, teach you a lesson. Next time he’s not gonna be so oblivious. Hell, he’ll probably notice as soon as he watches the footage again. You weren't fucking subtle.”

Laurel shrugs, scoffs, her eyes rolling. “He only sees what he wants to see. But my dad, he taught me Morse Code, he’s gonna notice.”

“Your dad who isn't going to pay to get you out?” Frank counters.

She smiles like death, cruel and sharp and so, so dangerous. “He won’t pay, but he doesn't have any problem with putting a couple in your chest to get me out.”

“Oh?” Frank snaps, stalks another long step towards her until he nearly brushes her knees with his own. He feels Laurel flinch back, pulling away from his body, feels a cruel sort of pleasure that she retreats from him, may even fear him. “You think ‘Palm Beach, basement’ is gonna do shit? Gonna rescue you? It tells them nothing, hell, it tells them less than nothing.”

“It gives them a lead,” she snarls, surging forward in her chair, straining against the zip ties, her teeth bared to him. He has to step back or they’ll touch, or he thinks she may just be able to sink her teeth into his chest, rip out his heart. “It gives them something.”

Frank grins now, his lips twisting into something, ugly, mocking. He’s furious at her for the risk she took, continues to take, for the position she put him in, the choice she forced him to make. He hates her, even as he knows he made the only choice he was able, hates that he was forced to choose against his interests, against his partners, hates that its something like inevitability, like fate that makes him choose Laurel. He hates that its never really been a choice at all. “It gives you something I think, you pathetic child. It’s a pointless, pathetic rebellion. And you’re lucky I realize how little it matters, that I was willing to overlook it.”

“You're pretty pissed about something that doesn't matter then,” she hisses at him, twisting her shoulders against the tug of the zip ties.

“Because you’re gonna get more bones snapped, gonna get your teeth knocked out,” he tells her, can’t quite believe she doesn't get it, doesn't fucking understand that she’s playing with fire, just daring Martin to come after her again; that Frank and obliviousness are the only things standing between her and cracked ribs. He can’t believe he’s willing to take her side and she doesn't even realize what he’s doing for her, doesn't even realize the danger she’s in, that or realizes and just doesn't care. “Over a pathetic childish fantasy. You think it matters to him whether your stupid message means anything? He just wants you to submit.”

“Well fuck him,” Laurel says, eyes flashing. “And fuck you too, you coward.”

“I fucking protected you,” Frank counters, realizes he’s practically shouting and lowers his voice to a growl, a snarl, so quiet he thinks his words are more felt than heard. “So fuck you for putting me in that position.”

She slips back in her chair, slips back against the wooden slats, fierce, dangerous smile suddenly darting across her lips. Her eyes shine with something like victory, like recognition. “I didn’t ask you for anything,” she tells him. “I’ve never asked you for anything, and I owe you even less.”

“I’m trying to,” he begins.

“Oh, you’re trying to protect me, huh?” she asks sarcastically, one eyebrow curving just slightly, lips curving. “Let’s talk more about pathetic childish fantasies, huh? I don’t need you to protect me. And I don’t care about your guilt. Fuck you.”

“Fuck me?” he snaps. “Fuck you. You stupid selfish brat, you spoiled fucking princess. I shouldn't’ve given you anything. I thought if I was nice, if I explained things, if I let you have your hands free you’d listen, wouldn't do anything so stupid.”

“Oh yeah?” Laurel pitches forward so hard the chair jumps, screeches against the floor, until Frank wonders if she’s not going to spill to the floor, not going to throw herself out of the chair to get to him, her anger and her helplessness making her reckless, uncaring. “I’m not a sheep. You can’t just smile at me and I’ll go off to get slaughtered because I’m too dumb to realize what’s happening.”

“So you’d rather get yourself killed to make a damn point?” he asks, clenching his hands into fists, fighting the urge to stalk forward again, fighting the urge to hit her, make her understand, make her realize what she’s doing, what he’s done for her, how dangerous the situation really is. She’s practically asking for Martin to hurt her again, practically begging for more violence, more pain and he can’t understand why, why she would choose this, can’t understand what it gets her, how it helps her. They had something easy, something simple, a tentative truce, but one that could’ve lasted, could’ve helped her survive this kidnapping. And instead, instead she’s insisting on petty acts of rebellion, instead she’s insisting on Morse Code messages no one’s going to notice, no one’s going to be able to use, sending smoke signals out into the darkness that will never reach another pair of human eyes, beaming dots and dashes of code out towards the empty stars, refusing to accept her situation.

Refusing to accept that she’s powerless, refusing to accept that there’s nothing she can do to save herself except wait, silent and watchful, for a rescue that looks like ransom.

“It doesn't matter,” Laurel hisses. “Its my goddamn choice to make. You can’t protect me. You’re not protecting me, you’re just trying to get me to willingly turn myself into a body, into one of your fucking sheep. Fuck you, I’m a person.”

“I know you’re a person,” Frank practically shouts, teeth clenched, his words coming out past something hard, something heavy and sharp lodged in his throat, his voice practically a sob. “Of course I know you're a person. That’s why I’m doing this. I can’t let you get hurt.”

“I’m already hurt,” she counters, chair legs screaming across the floor as she jerks her knees, frustrated, impotent, trying to make Frank see some point she thinks is crucial to his understanding.

“I can’t let it happen again.”

“And I can’t rely on you,” Laurel says, all the anger suddenly vanished from her voice, her expression softening, suddenly sounding almost apologetic. “I can’t trust you. You’re just as bad as them. You don’t want to be, but you're still the reason I’m here. I can’t just wait around, trust that everything will be fine.”

“Please,” he asks, practically begging now, the edge of desperation lurking underneath his words finally drawn to the surface, replacing his rage as though it had never existed at all. If she’d just listen, just trust him to be able to protect her, keep her safe, he will, swears he will, will keep her safe until he can let her go, until they get paid and she can go back to her family, to her life. He’ll protect her from the things she fears, the things she can’t keep herself safe from. But if she fights, if she continues to resist Martin, resist this entire situation, she’s going to suffer, going to be hurt worse than she has been and it will be his fault, always his fault. He can’t stomach that guilt, can’t stomach knowing she’s hurting and its because of him, because he failed to make her realize the kind of creature Martin is, the kind of creature Frank is. “Please just listen to me, please just let your dad rescue you.”

“I can’t,” she whispers and suddenly her eyes are filled with tears, big and glassy. She swallows hard, thickly and glances away from him. “I can’t do that. Because he’s not going to do that.”

“Oh, Laurel,” he whispers, sorrow now the only thing clouding his mind. “Oh shit.”

“You think it’ll all work out, that everything’ll be fine,” she tells him, still refusing to meet his eyes, her voice rough and shaking. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, tears slipping down her cheeks, hot and heavy. “But what if it doesn't. I can’t rely on my dad, on you, on anyone else to get me out of this. The only person I can trust is myself.”

“I’ll protect you, I promise,” he swears, wanting to reach out, take her hand, maybe drop to her feet and swear his loyalty to her. He wants to prove to her that he means it, swears it, that he’ll protect her from anything, everything, that if she just trusts him, everything will be fine, everything will be safe.

“And when Halloween comes? What then?”

“It won’t,” he vows. “Its not going to come to that.”

“What if it does?” she asks again, trying to scrub at her cheeks with her shoulder, trying to brush the tears away. She’s still crying, tears still sliding from her lashes, but her eyes are stony, her mouth set grimly. “You get the luxury of not thinking about that, I don’t. So what happens if Halloween comes and you don’t have your money? What then?”

“I…” Frank starts, falters, his brain unable to follow that track to its logical conclusion, unable to consider what he knows to be true. His mind simply stops, can’t move forward, rejects the place his thoughts reach, denies it utterly because it can’t be true, he refuses to allow it to be true. He knows it doesn't matter. “I don’t know.”

“I do,” she insists, voice cold. She turns her head, meets his eyes, refuses to let him look away, refuses to let him flinch away from the truth, from cold, horrible reality. “My dad refuses to pay and then you let your buddy murder me.”

“I…” he starts again, falters. “I won’t let that happen.”

She shrugs, lips twisting in confusion. “You won’t let that happen? What does that even mean? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re gonna wind up with two choices; kill me or kill them. And I know which choice you’re gonna make.”

“I’ll…I’ll figure something out,” he vows, shoving his hands deep in his pockets to keep from reaching out, wanting to touch her, reassure himself that he’s doing the right thing. “I promise.”

“You’re not convincing them of anything,” she tells him flatly, eyes flicking towards the ceiling. “Not that one at least. And what else is there? Sneaking down here, letting me loose? That’s a fantasy, and I’d be stupid to fall for it.”

“So Morse Code?” he asks, edge creeping back to his voice because there’s a creeping desperation, like drowning, hovering low in the back of his mind and he can’t, he can’t let it win, has to convince this girl there’s a way, a better way than risking herself on half baked plans with no hope of success. “That’s your best plan?”

“No,” she tells him sharply. “But when a chance falls in my lap like that…”

“It was reckless,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his beard. “And if I’m not in jail when this is all over, I’ll give you $20 if you can find anyone who admits to having noticed.”

Laurel inclines her head, just fractionally. “Deal. If you're not in jail and I’m not dead.”

“Not ending that way,” he assures her again.

“Its ending whatever way it's gonna,” she shrugs. “I don’t know and you don't either.”

“You're too young to be such a pessimist,” he tells her, trying to force himself to grin, teasing and crooked, thinks his expression slides somewhere closer to a grimace.

“I’m too young,” she tells him sharply, though not meanly, not cruelly, more like she’s just stating facts. “To have been kidnapped.”

“Look, Laurel,” he begins, eyes shifting to his feet.

“I know,” she cuts him off, the tenor of her voice forcing him to lift his eyes, meet hers. “I know, ok. This is a shit situation anyway you skin it.”

“Ok,” he mumbles uselessly.

They retreat into silence, into their own corners for long minutes, both on guard against some further attack, some further resumption of hostilities. Eventually, though, Laurel sighs, heavy.

“Can I just have my water back?” she asks, watching as he grabs her half filled bottle. “And my arms untied?”

“Nothing stupid,” he cautions her.

She nods. “Nothing stupid.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for the next few chaps they maybe start becoming friends? Or whatever's the Stockholm syndrome equivalent of friends...
> 
> Leave some love/comments/kudos if you like this mess of a fic/feel so inclined. :)

“You wanna stay in the chair?” he asks her as he sinks to his knees, slices the zip tie threaded between the chair slats. “Or…”

“No,” comes her instant reply. “I do not want to stay in the chair.”

He chuckles despite himself, seeing Laurel’s sudden tremble as his breath fans against her neck, seeing the goosebumps that bloom against the long column of her neck, the downy space behind her ear. Something tightens deep in his chest and Frank’s forced to rock back on his heels, breath short and his head suddenly spinning, the edges of his vision blurred. He’s not sure Laurel notices, hopes desperately that she doesn't. “Just checking.”

He circles back around, slides a tie between her wrists, securing her arms before he snaps the ties against her ankles, steps back and lets her stand.

She grabs her water bottle, gets the cap off and drinks down the rest of the bottle. “So we have three more days,” she says glumly, sinks down on the blanket again, leaning back against the wall.

“Sounds like it,” Frank mumbles, taking his own seat near her, not close enough to touch, not even leaning against the same wall, but close, near.

“Why Halloween?” she asks thoughtfully. “Do you know?”

“No,” he confesses. “I don’t.”

“Do they really think my dad can get his hands on ten mill in three days?” her lips twist into a scowl, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “Or is this just an excuse to kill me at the end of things?”

“No,” he tells her quickly, almost too quickly because Laurel glances up sharply, stares at him like she’s listening to all the things rattling around in his brain, all the things he’s not saying. “No, that’s not what’s going on.”

Laurel gives him a sharp glance. “You're sure?”

“Sure as I am about anything to do with you,” he tells her, feels a little like he’s confessing to something he shouldn't be, confessing to something he's not sure he wants her to know.

“I don’t need you to be sure about me,” she says with a scowl as she pulls the edges of the blanket into her lap, creating another cocoon around her legs. “I need you to be sure about him. Sven.”

“I’m sure,” Frank promises. “He’s not wanting to kill you, not if it can be avoided.”

“And if it can’t?” she asks, as Frank knew she would.

“It can,” he assures her. “Just takes your dad paying. And he will.”

She sighs, picks at the threads on the blanket, eyes downcast. 

“Don’t assume the worst till you have to,” he tells her, fingers itching with the desire to reach out, take her hand in his, stroke his thumb over her knuckles, reassure her, somehow, that everything will work out, that everything will be fine. He’s always been big on touch; after a decade locked up, rarely able to touch the people he loved most, rarely able to touch them in a way that conveyed his feelings, his affection, rarely able to touch the people he wanted, always touched by the people he didn’t, guards and prisoners alike, and now, well, now that he as a choice, he wants to touch always, wants to touch everything. He wants to touch her, now, wants to give her as much comfort as he can, take as much comfort from her as he can, wants to just feel that connection with her.

But he doesn't, because Frank knows that touching her is dangerous, touching her is like touching a flame, like cracking open a box marked ‘DO NOT OPEN’ like hitting the big red button he’s been told not to touch, touching Laurel out of a desire to do so and not for necessity is something that will doom him, Frank knows that much, set him careening that much faster towards the end he knows is coming. They are, the two of them, flame and gunpowder, fatal and yet drawn together like gravity, like fate. But Frank, he’s going to resist a while longer yet, can resist her pull for now, nagging and stubborn as the desire to take her hand may be.

“Just trying to be a realist,” she shrugs, mouth twisting sourly, fingers still tugging at the threads on the blanket, almost like she’s nervous, almost like she can’t stop herself, wants to reach out and touch him as well.

“Don’t,” he tells her. “Not yet.”

She smiles thinly but then it grows, grows wider, just a hint of flashing teeth.

“You need anything?” he asks after a moment.

A quick shake of her head. “Maybe just the pot.”

“Yeah?”

She nods. “I…your friend makes me,” she falters, trails off. “I hate the way he makes me feel.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “He’s…kind of an asshole isn't he?”

The girl nods seriously. “He is. I think he enjoyed breaking my fingers. I know he enjoyed hitting me”

Frank tightens his jaw, uncertain of how much he can say to her, how honest he can be about his own opinions on Martin. “I think he enjoys being listened to more than he likes violence.”

Laurel glances up, her eyes sharp and her jaw tight but doesn't challenge him, just tucks her injured arm against her chest, tight and protective, her other arm cradling it as best she can with the zip ties pinning them together.

He feels bad for lying to her, for obscuring the truth, because as much as he knows Martin likes to be obeyed, he knows, can see it on the other man’s face that he enjoys violence too, enjoys causing pain in those who defy him, maybe just enjoys pain in general. He thinks she may recognize that he’s lying though she keeps silent, chooses not to call him out on it.

Her mouth twists though, like she wants to say something, can’t quite decide what needs to be said, how to say it. Laurel’s teeth sink into her lower lip, frustrated, he thinks, before she finally speaks. “If it was just you,” she tells him. “This whole thing wouldn't be so bad. But that guy…”

“Wait,” he says, a crooked, teasing smirk dancing across his face before he can remember why it’s a bad idea to joke with her.

“You’re admitting I’m not all that bad? You’re actually admitting that?”

She sighs, rolls her eyes, but he can see the little grin pull at the corners of her mouth. “Leave it to you to hear only he most narcissistic parts of that sentence.”

“Hey,” Frank tells her chuckling, still trying desperately to convince her to let him continue teasing her, to let him help her forget Martin, forget the bad parts of this kidnapping, of the past three days, and to focus on what good she can bring out of it. “I gotta take what I can get.”

“Well,” she tells him, smiling that strange bladed smile. “You may be the world’s worst kidnapper, but you’re only a marginally terrible human being.”

“Um, thanks?”

“You did kidnap me,” Laurel points out, voice suddenly going half a dozen degrees colder, eyes narrowing. There’s still a hint of warmth in her voice, like she’s willing to give him another chance to not screw things up, but only one, waiting to slam shut the door that she’s only just reluctantly cracked to him. “But if we’d met at a party or something, maybe we’d’ve hit it off.”

“A party?” he asks, knowing as he speaks that he’s asking the wrong questions, taking the wrong parts of her words and focusing on them; not that parts that make his stomach twist and flip like its suddenly been filled with soda, but the ones that set his throat tightening with the first stirrings of despair. “Not school or something?”

“I think you're a little old for 11th grade,” she quips, smirking at him.

“That’s not what I meant,” he tells her, trying not to let his face fall, trying not to let her see the places his mind is going, trying not to let her see how much her casual words have stuck like a knife twisted between his ribs. “You think we’d only hit it off at a party? I’d only be good for a hookup?”

She shrugs, face slipping into something neutral, something blank, a mask he can’t hope to penetrate. “Dunno,” she says, her shoulders hitching again. “I don’t know you. I don’t know if we’d hit it off as more than a hookup.”

Frank wants to stop, stop himself, stop his words, stop this entire line of thought, edging far, far too close to places that are dangerous and deadly, places where one wrong move along a shaking, ever-shifting path will send him spilling too his doom. He knows he’s creeping far, far too close to a place he can’t come back from, creeping ever closer to the things he’s been trying to resist, tell himself aren’t true. He’s been drawing closer to Laurel since this whole debacle began, not even really fighting the pull she has over him, just letting himself get sucked down into the riptide, letting himself be pulled under, drowned. Laurel’s like gravity, an immutable law of his universe, he can’t break free of her, just has to learn to live with the forces she exerts over him.

But he knows how dangerous that will be, knows that he can’t just give himself over to the things he feels or thinks he feels or knows he will feel, someday. He knows he should resist, should try and fight the things in his blood, his bones, the things like inevitability, should resist them so he can protect himself, protect her from the other, terrible inevitable things competing for dominance.

“What do you want to know?” he asks anyway, giving her his own little shrug, his most charming grin. “Let’s consider this whole thing a bad, regrettable hookup and now you can ask me questions, see if you really dig me or wanna kick me to the curb.”

“Except I can’t,” she tells him, voice turning absolutely frigid now, and stiff, like she’s trying to keep herself from screaming, trying to control her raging emotions beneath a placid façade. “Because I don’t have a choice in any of this.”

“Course you do,” he assures her. “You find out stuff you don’t like, find out you hate me, you get to stop talking to me. Ignore me completely if you wanna. I’ll still bring you food, hell, I’ll lend you one of my books, go buy you anything you request. Whatever you want. But you can quit talking to me if I turn out to be an asshole.”

“You _are_ an asshole,” she tells him, though there’s less conviction behind her words than Frank would have expected. “That’s never been the issue.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

She sighs, heavy, picks nervously at the blanket with her good hand.

“C’mon,” he prompts, letting a smirk flit across his face, urgent and teasing. “Ask me anything.”

“What's your name, date of birth and social security number?” she asks sarcastically.

“Why, so you can look up my criminal record?” he teases.

“No,” she tells him, calm as ever, her blue eyes cutting through him. “So I can tell the cops how to find you, give you one. If you don’t already.”

His blood chills because he forgot, again, or tricked himself into ignoring where they are, what they are. He let himself be blind again and pretended that Laurel doesn't have zip ties around he wrists, her ribs crawling with bruises, that he isn't trying to extort her father for $10 million. He forgot who he was, who Laurel was, let himself pretend that the thing crackling between them, the thing being given life in the spaces of their silences was the only thing that mattered, the only thing that was real.

But to Laurel, the zip ties, Martin, the pain splitting her body are just as real, just as important as whatever small, fragile thing is brewing between her and Frank.

“You’re really gonna try to send the fuzz after me?” he asks, trying to sound like he’s making a joke, trying to sound like he’s not as hurt as he feels. “You really won’t let it go as long as you get back in one piece?”

She nods, eyes like steel. “There’s no one piece to get back. And I’m never letting it go.”

He nods, stomach sinking because she’s right. Laurel’s right and he’s wrong, about all of this. She shouldn't let it go, shouldn't ever forgive him or the others for what they’ve done to her, what they’re doing to her with every second that passes. Its horrible and they’re horrible and if the world were just they’d be punished for it. He thinks the universe owes Laurel that much. Its horrible what they’re doing to her body, horrible what they’re doing to her mind, the uncertain limbo between life and death, freedom and captivity, never sure what’s coming, never sure what new terrible thing is in store for her. And the uncertainty too of relying on her father, on the person that’s supposed to love her the most, wondering always, if that’s really true, if that love will be enough to pay the demanded price, always wondering the cost of her love, the worth of her existence. It’s a horrible thing they’ve done and Frank has to admit, he’s not sure she doesn't deserve her revenge. 

“I’ll look forward to seeing you at the trial then,” he tells her, knowing that he sounds sincere, apologetic, knowing he misses the mark on sarcasm by a good hundred miles.

“Counting on it,” she growls.

“C’mon,” he urges. “What do you wanna know? I’ll tell you anything I can.”

“Anything that doesn't get you caught,” she corrects sharply, but softens, sighs. “Fine.”

She doesn't go forward though, doesn't ask him any questions, just watches him, fingers still playing at the edges of the blanket. “Ok,” he tells her, taking a long deep breath, ready for the plunge, wanting to take the risk, not sure it won’t come back to haunt him. “I’ll start. I can’t tell you my name, but its closer to Franz than Lars if we’re going Swedish.”

“Franz?” she laughs, eyebrows raised.

He nods, shrugs. “I can’t really help that.”

“So what's your name?” she asks, a smirk climbing across her face like creeping vines. “Finn? Fred? Felix? I bet its Felix.”

“It might be Felix,” he laughs.

“You look kinda like a Felix,” Laurel says thoughtfully, studying him through narrowed eyes.

“What does a Felix look like?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“Like you,” comes her answer, so obvious that Frank can’t help laughing again.

“Devastatingly handsome?” he asks, wondering what compels him to do that, compels him to draw attention to the things brewing between them, the things he fears, the things he craves between them, the strange, fragile attraction that he knows she hates, rejects as much as she’s unable to stand against it.

Laurel rolls her eyes, scoffs, either deliberately ignoring or not even noticing his words, the things they hint at. “Yeah, something like that.”

“So what else you wanna know?”

“What do you do for fun?” she asks after a long, long moment spent watching him. “When you’re not kidnapping people?”

“I’m not any different from what you're seeing,” he tells her cautiously. “I read a lot. I like cooking too. My ma taught me, said I’d never get married if I couldn’t cook.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

He smirks. “Better than I was expecting actually. Don’t know if its gonna snag me a wife, but it’s snagged me a couple girlfriends.”

“Do they know what you do?” she asks him, her voice bladed.

“No,” he admits. “They don’t.”

“What kinda things do you cook,” she asks smiling like she’s won some kind of victory, sharp and pleased. “For your girlfriends?”

He shrugs. “Spaghetti and meatballs. That’s my go-to. Lasagna too.”

“You Italian?”

He shrugs. “Don’t have to be Italian to cook Italian,” he points out.

“Yeah, but if your mom’s teaching you to cook…” Laurel trails off, a little shrug and a scowl he thinks has nothing to do with him. “You’re Italian.”

“Might have some Italian,” he admits, careful not to confirm much, to give her no additional leads to someday figure out who he is. “What about you? Your mom teach you to cook?”

Laurel freezes, shrinks back against the wall like she’s trying to vanish beneath the blanket. “You really are a terrible kidnapper,” she tells him, voice tight.

“I don’t know what that means,” he says slowly, cautiously, like walking on slowly cracking glass, unsure when he will fall through, crash to the ground.

“Like I said,” she says, the sudden tension still running like a current through her words. “You’re the shittiest kidnapper. You really didn’t do your research, did you?”

“What should I know then?”

“My mother spends time in the psych ward like other people spend time in the Bahamas,” Laurel grits out like every word slices at her, like every syllable is a razor blade against her tongue. She tries to sound casual, tries to shrug like it doesn't really concern her, bother her in the slightest, but Frank can see the stiffness in her jaw, the fierce anger just beneath her words.

“That must be hard,” he says carefully because Frank can tell the mention of her mother is like pressing on a bruise, a dull, painful ache that throbs and pulses with each breath, one she tells herself she doesn't feel like the bruises along her ribs.

“Its not,” Laurel tells him as walls slam down in front of her eyes, cutting him off completely.

“Sorry,” he tells her quickly. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she snaps. “Besides, its my dad you care about, isn't it?”

“I don’t care about any of them,” he says, too honestly, again fighting off the compulsion to take her hand, run his thumb across her knuckles, give her some kind of comfort, what little comfort he can through his touch, his words. “Your dad’s for other people to worry about. You’re the only one I’m concerned with.”

“Nothing to be concerned about,” Laurel insists harshly. “My only problem is that I’m here. My only problem is you.”

“And the man upstairs who fractured your wrist,” Frank points out, because he knows she’s just lashing out, just trying to hurt him, upset him. And its working, even as he recognizes what she’s doing, it hurts him and makes him want to hurt her too. He’s lashing out just as thoroughly, reminding Laurel of Martin, lurking upstairs, lying in wait and ready to hurt her again if he’s not obeyed. He’s reminding her of the things she fears, the things he ought to be helping her forget, at least for a little while.

She hisses, sucks air in through her teeth. “Why don’t you do something about him?” she asks finally, almost pleading. “Why do you let him do these things?”

Frank sighs, runs a hand through his beard to disguise his scowl. “I’m not his boss, I can’t make him do anything.”

“He’s your boss,” Laurel insists harshly. “Don’t try to bullshit me. He’s in charge here and you're just a hired gun. You don’t even know him.”

“That’s not true,” Frank lies, his teeth clenched.

“Bullshit,” she snaps. “You and the other one, Olaf, you’re friends. I see how you talk. But you and him, he’s a stranger and he’s your boss and you hate him.”

He shrugs, tries to play things off as unimportant, as something he hasn't even considered. “So what if I do?”

Laurel goes blank, expressionless. “So what if you do,” she echoes.

“I’m trying,” he offers. “To keep him away from you. I am.”

She shakes her head, eyes dropping to her knees. “You’re not doing anything. You’re telling yourself you can do something to protect me, but that’s just magical thinking. When it comes down to it, you’re gonna let him do what he wants.”

“I won’t,” Frank insists.

“You will,” she counters. “I’m certain of it. You haven't done a damn thing so far.”

He nods without knowing he is, automatically, swallowing heavy and thick around the guilt eating its way through her chest.

She’s right of course, he hasn’t protected her so far and any insistence that he can, or will in the future is nothing more than wishful thinking. He can either tell her he’s going to help, or he can actually do it, step in the next time Martin decides to hurt her.

She glares across the basement at him, eyes hard, the angle of her jaw harder until Frank glances away, glances down at his own knees, ashamed.

And then he looks up, suddenly at the sound of sobs, the sound of Laurel’s harsh, shuddering breaths. Fat tears are dripping down her cheeks as she wipes angrily at them with her bound hands, scrubbing furiously until the skin shines red and raw.

“Hey,” he whispers, throat tight feeling like he wants to cry himself. He resists the urge to get to his feet, slide closer to her, resists the urge to pull her into his arms. “Laurel, what’s going on?”

She meets his eyes, tears still clinging to her lashes. “My mom,” she says, voice rough like sandpaper. “I wonder if my dad’s even told her.”

“What do you mean?” he asks gently, fingers itching to take hers, like some kind of compulsion he knows he won’t be able to resist for long.

“He,” she starts, falters as she scrubs angrily at more tears, wincing as the zip ties tug at her broken wrist. She sighs, begins again.“He keeps things from her sometimes. Things he thinks will hurt her.”

“Yeah?” Frank asks dumbly, unsure what to say, unsure what to do to ease whatever’s happening, the grief tearing across her chest.

Laurel nods, sucks in a shaky breath. “Sometimes they will,” she shrugs, a little shrug that suggests it doesn't hurt her, isn't something she minds or thinks much about, just a little quirk in the relationship between her parents. But Frank can tell it’s a lie by the clench of her jaw, by the distant look of pain in her eyes. “Sometimes I think he just does it so he can control her, manage her. So she doesn't interfere with our lives.”

“What kinds of things does he do?” Frank asks, realizing that the more she talks the less stricken Laurel looks, the fewer tears drip from her eyes, the steadier her breathing comes. She’s still upset, he can still see the hollow hurt, faded and heavy in her gaze, but he thinks it helps, maybe, to speak about it, gives Laurel the thing she needs to manage the pain she feels.

“Sometimes its stuff that doesn't even matter,” she shrugs, again, like her father’s actions have no impact on her, don’t hurt her just as much as they hurt her mother. “Little things. Like I’ll mention some track meet I won a couple months before and she won’t have any idea. Or when she didn’t know my brother was majoring in business. Other times its bigger things; my lung collapsed a couple years ago and he never told her. He says he doesn't want to upset her. Maybe that’s it, maybe he just wants to control her, force her to be normal.”

“And you think he won’t tell her about this?”

She nods, another rush of tears springing to her eyes. “I just,” she begins, falters as she takes a long, sobbing breath. “Just the thought of her not knowing, of him trying to keep this from her, that I’m gone and he doesn't know where and he doesn't know if I’m ever gonna come back. I don’t know how he could keep it from her, but maybe he should.”

Frank doesn't know what to say, just gives into the urge, practically burning through his body, to slide closer. He slips across the floor, sinks down next to her against the wall, close but not touching, a long, infinite foot of space between them. He can’t keep himself distant from her, not when every nerve, every cell in his body is urging him otherwise. She’s astounding, he thinks, some strange creature he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to understand, not if he spends a thousand years, a hundred thousand pages studying her. She’s kidnapped, tied up in a basement, her arm shattered, her skin mottled with bruises and she’s concerned about whether her mother should even know what’s been done to her, concerned with her mother’s pain, her fragile mental state. 

Frank knows that when he was locked up, spent those ten years behind bars, he barely cared about how it impacted his family, barely cared about the pain it caused them. He thought about it sometimes, about how it must kill his mom to see her youngest son in a prison jumpsuit, his arms and legs shackled, see him gaunt and hollow eyed, see him grow up in fits and starts, like stop motion animation, jumpy and erratic. But still, much as he understood how much it tore at his mom to see him, he would never have asked her to stay away, never insisted she not make the trek up to the New York border, never wanted her to remain in darkness, ignorant and blissful. He was a child when he went in, remained a child until he got out, despite the fact that sometimes he felt a million years old, felt he’d been inside for decades, had never really been a child at all, but still, he wanted, craved his mother, her comfort, her warmth. He never would have told her to stay away.

But Laurel, well, her mind goes to her mother, to protecting her, protecting what she can. Frank wonders if its because her mother’s mental state is fragile, if its made Laurel into the adult instead of the child, forced to subsume her own interests to those of her mother’s, forced to care about protecting her first and always. He’s not sure he can imagine a world where he wouldn't want his mother to know if he was kidnapped, can’t imagine a world where he wouldn't want to know that she was doing everything possible, everything in her power to bring him back, to save him, protecting him as best she could from afar. It may be selfish, but he suspects that’d be what he wanted, in the darkest, most base parts of his mind, even as he hoped, desperately she could remain in the dark.

“You think that’d be what she wants?” he prompts, wanting to keep Laurel talking, keep her focused on her mother as an intellectual puzzle, as a problem to be solved, so she doesn't have to feel, so she can bury her emotions. “Not to know?”

Laurel shrugs, face turned away from him, another choking sob ripped from her throat. “I don’t know,” she whispers finally. “It might be better for her if she didn’t, you know. There’s nothing she can do about it, my dad’s the only one with money. But at the same time, her not knowing…”

Laurel trails off, and Frank watches as her shoulders curve in, her bound hands tight across her chest, like she’s trying to make herself small, like she’s trying to shield herself from some great, battering pain. “Maybe not knowing is even worse,” she finishes, voice shaking and timid like a child’s.

“Do you want her to know?” he asks gently, studying her profile as she continues to turn away from him, refuses to let him see her grief. She’s all sharp lines and smooth curves, a study in contradictions, her jaw, her cheekbones sharp and bladed, but her lips, the lines around her eyes are soft, full. He cant help but admire the things she is.

“I don’t know,” she whispers as a tear slides down the suddenly smooth curve of her cheek. “I don’t know what I want. Except for this to be over.”

“It will be soon,” he promises her, the only thing he can promise her, the only thing that’s real.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in this chapter there may or may not be some physical contact between Frank and Laurel (*maybe*)  
> Happy Valentines Day...?  
> Leave some feedback if you're still feeling this...

She laughs, ironic and derisive, thumb catching at the tears that cling under her eyes. “One way or another,” she adds sarcastically, then suddenly faltering, her breath turning harsh. “Do you think this is what its like for her?”

“What do you mean?” he asks softly. “What’s like what for her?”

“This?” Laurel asks, gesturing expansively with her bound hands, her voice suddenly breathy with something he can only conclude is fear. “For my mom. Being, I dunno, locked up, locked away. I know its cause she’s crazy, cause its for her safety, but do you think she feels like this, like its making her crazier?”

“I…” Frank starts, stops, closes his mouth, because he doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what he can say, decides to let her continue, if she can, explain the things rushing through her mind.

“D’you think it makes things worse? Feeling trapped, feeling powerless, like you can talk and talk and scream and no one is listening to you, like you might just be a ghost already?”

“Yes,” Frank breathes, because he knows all too well the feeling she’s describing, the feeling of not mattering, of being a body subjected to the whims of others with no desire, no understanding of his own. There was a long, long time in juvie when he wondered if he was going crazy, if he even existed at all as more than flesh and blood and bones, whether there was any innate Frank-ness left inside him or if all that remained was a shell, an empty vessel. He knows the feeling Laurel’s describing, hated it then, hates it now, the feeling that nothing mattered, that he didn’t matter.

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” she whispers, uninjured hand threading through her hair, pushing it out of the way, tight against her scalp. “Down here. Nothing feels real down here.”

“You’re real,” Frank tells her gently, knowing that’s the most important thing for her to know, the most important reassurance she can get. When he felt his mind slipping away, panicking that he’d died behind bars and no one had thought to tell him, convinced that the world outside cinderblock cells and steel bars no longer existed, it had always helped to be reminded that he was real, that he could touch the world, touch other people, that he was not imagining the rest of the world. “You're real and I’m real. And this blanket is real.”

She nods, fingers working along the edge of the blanket, smoothing over the fabric, running her fingertips back and forth along the soft cotton of it. “This is real,” she echoes.

“Yeah,” Frank assures her. “And the water bottle’s real, and…”

She reaches out suddenly, grasps his hand in hers, fingers firm but skin featherlight against his. “You’re real,” she says softly as her fingers slide against his palm, trip across his wrist, slow and cautious like she’s memorizing every cell of his skin. “I know you’re real.”

He doesn't know whether she does it or he does, but he blinks and their fingers are tangled together, her injured arm, still shackled to her right wrist hanging limply in the air between them. And then his thumb is passing over the back of her hand, the edge of her thumb, Laurel’s hand tightening around his, keeping their bodies joined. “I’m real.”

“You're the only thing that feels real.”

“You’re real too,” he tells her, not stopping the movements of his fingers, not daring to take his hand away, not sure he can bring himself to drop her hand. They’ve been slowly circling each other for two days now, circling ever closer and now finally its happened and Frank can’t bring himself to draw away just yet. He knows he should, knows touching her is a disaster for both of them, knows he should draw away from her before something worse happens, before they fall even deeper into whatever strange force has come over them, compels them. But he can’t, not quite yet, not when the feeling of her hand in his seems like coming home, seems like sinking beneath gentle waves, comforting him. Not when Laurel’s hand feels like the first real thing since he came to Florida.

He knows its not as bad as her sense of loss, her sense of shifting, fractured reality, but he’s barely left the house in three days, barely seen the sun, has spent the majority of his time here, in this strange, concrete tomb with Laurel. He’s not tied up, not shackled, he could leave at anytime, but Frank knows, he’s just as much a prisoner down in this basement, just as tethered to this house. He could leave if he wanted, walk away from this job, but he’d likely find himself blacklisted back in Philly, never called to work another job again, kidnapping or otherwise. And Chris, Chris’d probably suffer for it as his partner.

And Martin, well, Frank’s not entirely sure Martin wouldn’t just come after him, kill him, enact his own form of vengeance for abandoning the job. Frank could walk away, just as easily as slipping out for dinner and never coming back, never stopping, but he won’t, he can’t. He’s just as tied to this basement as she is, only Frank’s ropes aren’t made of plastic but of obligation, duty, fear. 

Even so, Frank’s been down in the basement long enough that reality is beginning to fracture, crack around the edges and the solid weight of Laurel’s hand against his, the brush of her skin against his fingers is a sudden anchor tethering him to what is real and what isn't. He spent too long confined that now his hold on the world in small, restricted spaces is frayed, buckling, already fragile and torn. He thinks perhaps that Laurel is helping remind him what’s real just as much as he’s reminding her, the two of them a constant feedback loop against the things that might not really exist.

“Everything hurts,” she confesses softly, a sob choking her words. “Its hurt for so long I don’t know what it means anymore. If it means anything at all. My hand and my head and my ankles and everything, everything hurts.”

“Its real,” he assures her. “Its painful but its real.”

“What if I’m going crazy though?” she asks, hand slipping from his, her joined hands slipping into her lap, making small nervous gestures against the blanket, twitching and repetitive. “What if I’m going crazy like her?”

“You’re not,” he promises, an empty ache blooming deep in his chest as she pulls away, the loss of contact sudden and crushing. He wants to feel her hand against his again, wants to have the reassurance that she’s real the same way he wants to be able to remind her that she’s real, that she’s alive. He thinks its as much reassurance for himself as it is for her.

“What if I am?” she insists. “I can’t be like her. I’m not like her.”

“You're not,” he tells her. “You're not crazy. This is crazy.”

She nods, her teeth clenching, jaw going tight, defiance passing across her eyes. “This is crazy,” she repeats like a mantra. “This is what’s crazy.”

“I promise you’re not crazy,” he says gently. “Not today anyway.”

She chuckles, the sound soft and wet with tears. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Who knows what tomorrow’s gonna bring,” he shrugs, giving her a small tentative smile, teasing and slanted.

She swipes her hands under her eyes, against the thick bruising there until the tears have vanished. “Hopefully ten mill and my bed,” she laughs again. “I really miss my bed.”

“Better than upright in a chair?” he teases, hoping he can keep her laughing, hoping he can keep her from further despair.

“This blankets not half bad though,” she allows. “I didn’t sleep badly at all.”

“You also hadn't slept in like two days,” Frank points out, knocking his shoulder into hers, light and affectionate. 

She lets out a little giggle like a gasp, surprised and almost pleased, and a tremor passes across her body, a little quiver of laughter. “Still,” she says, laughter running like a current through her words. “It was a nice nap.”

“You need to take another one?”

Laurel shakes her head. “Not tired anymore.”

“You only had like three hours of sleep,” Frank points out.

“I know,” she shrugs. “Still not tired.”

“Ought to sleep now though,” he tells her. “You know you won’t when my buddy takes over.”

She hums softly so that he feels more than hears the sound. “Maybe.”

“I’ll even read out loud if you want, give you a bedtime story,” he teases.

“You’re already like halfway through the book,” she points out. “I’m just gonna be asking you questions instead of sleeping.”

He shrugs, grins because he knows he has her. He doesn't know why he thinks it matters that he get her to sleep, get her body to rest, have time to recover from all the great and terrible things that happen while she’s awake, but it does, it matters to him. Especially after she practically shattered in front of him, Frank wants her to sleep, to forget, even for just a moment, to let her mind rest so she can continue to fight.

It's stupid, he can recognize that, wanting her to fight, but he does, wants her to fight him, fight Martin and Chris, doesn't want her to simply give in, comply with their demands. He and Laurel have found a kind of gentle, tentative truce but she still calls him out, still largely operates under her own agenda, unconcerned with the things Frank thinks are important, with the things he wants from her. He doesn't want her to simply collapse and give in because fighting has become too hard. It may be counterintuitive, may be destructive towards his own goals, his own desires, his own desperate craving to not be locked up again, and yet Frank can’t help but admire her fierceness, her determination and cold blooded will, doesn't want to see that fractured by too long down in this basement, too long awake, too long trying to stand against forces bigger, stronger, more brutal than her. He wants her to keep fighting, even if the person she’s fighting is him.

“I can start at the beginning if you want,” he offers with a little hitching shrug. “I’ve read the book so many times one more won’t really matter.”

She laughs softly, quick and huffing. “Alright Lars, go ahead and educate me.”

“Still sticking with Lars?” he asks with a smirk. “Even after we determined my name’s really Felix.”

Her mouth twists into something that might be a smile, slow like honey. “I like Lars better. I think of you as Lars now, sorry.”

“That’s alright,” he replies, fighting hard against the sudden surge of desire to take her hand again. The wanting comes to him like the tide, in a strange ebb and flow he can’t begin to guess the pattern of. All Frank knows is that he wants. “Lars is a pretty good Viking name, I suppose I’ll take it.”

“Well its that or Beard-o.”

He laughs, sharp and barking before he can help himself. “Is there anyway I can throw a vote behind Beard-o?”

“No,” she laughs. “There isn't.”

“I don’t get a say in what you call me?” he teases. 

Laurel’s mouth twists into a scowl, sudden and jarring, the temperature of the room plummeting before Frank can really understand it. “Do I have a choice about getting out of here?”

Frank sighs, runs a hand through his beard. “No.”

“Then I don’t see why you should either,” she says, as he knew she would. It still makes guilt snap through his bones, still flare in his chest, but its duller now, less a sharp pain and more a low, familiar ache. Its not a pain he thinks he’ll ever get used to, not a pain he thinks he’ll ever be comfortable with, but there’s something in Laurel’s voice, something in her tone that makes him think maybe she’s condemning him with less vehemence, less shuddering anger. She speaks almost flatly, devoid of expression, like she’s reciting a line she doesn't really believe, almost like Laurel’s been programmed to respond in that way when she finds herself edging too close to something like enjoyment, a sharp little pinprick of reminder that she can’t allow herself to forget who she is, who he is, why she’s been trapped in this basement.

Frank sighs again because even though it no longer hurts as much, it still hurts, still causes that little twist of guilt in his chest. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah,” she breathes, her jaw tight. “You did.”

“I guess you can call me whatever you want then.”

“You do have a pretty great beard though,” she offers, smirking grin back, like it never left, like she hadn’t appeared ready to retreat back into silence and anger.

“Thanks,” he says, fingers carding against the short, wiry strands. “I’m pretty pleased with it how its been working out.”

“It get you more girls than the Italian cooking?”

“I’d say about the same,” he smirks, knowing he’s flirting again, unable to stop himself, unable to keep himself at a distance, keep himself from giving into the easy, comfortable thing arcing between them. Its so easy with Laurel, so natural, he just falls into patterns before he realizes what he’s doing, lets himself act on instinct with her. Their natural pattern is this quick, teasing thing, this thing like sparks flashing before they catch flame. They both tried, he thinks, and tried hard, to resist it, and they both certainly know what a bad idea it is, how disastrous it is for both of them, and yet, he thinks Laurel can’t stand against the pull either, two fish on line, slowly reeled in, struggling and flapping but fighting against the inevitable. “I’ve never had much trouble with getting girls.”

Her mouth twists like she wants to say something sarcastic, something that might just wound him, and Frank watches her good hand ball into a quick fist while she stamps that desire out. “You have a beard in high school?” she asks him. “Barely anyone at my school can grow one.”

“I didn't,” he confesses. The juvenile detention facility strictly forbid facial hair even though Frank probably could’ve grown one by about fifteen, had wanted to grow one even before then. He’d started out as one of the youngest boys there, always kept a bit of a chip on his shoulder about it, always felt like everyone still saw him as that tiny, scared boy with the high, shaking voice. He’d been glad when his voice dropped, had done his best to bulk up while he was there, gain breadth and muscle mass so he could leave his skinny, weedy self in the dust, wanted to leave no trace of who he had been when he entered juvie, wanted to give himself an outward appearance to match the hardening, the tempering of his heart into something cold, something strong like iron, a man that couldn't be broken by anything, not the guards, not the other prisoners, not a decade locked away from his family. 

He’d wanted to grow a beard too, thick and full and which left no doubt that Frank was nothing like the petrified Fishtown boy who had been committed there at eleven. He couldn’t and that had always bothered him. And when Frank was finally released, he grew a beard as soon as he could, felt somehow like it was his one small act of rebellion against the place where he’d spent nearly a decade, his one small way to leave the facility, leave the Frank who had survived there, grown up there behind, allowed him to become a new person, a new version of Frank Delfino that was free and capable of making his own choices about how he looked, about his life and yes, an adult too. He stopped short of growing dreads as he’d always joked he would once he got out, but he kept the beard idea, hasn’t shaved since, doesn't have much intention to. 

“School wouldn't let me,” he explains, as best he can, giving her as little information as he can while still being honest, still giving her what he can.

“You Catholic?” she asks, eyes narrowing and chin tilting slightly like she’s trying to figure him out, trying to hear the unspoken things beneath his words. “My Catholic school won’t let anyone grow a beard either.”

He nods. “Might be Catholic, might not, but I definitely spent time at a Catholic school.”

Laurel laughs, the sound reminding him of a warm breeze racing over still icy fields, the first breath of spring. “That’s about where I’ve landed with Catholicism too.”

“Sounds about right,” he echoes.

“You grow it as soon as you graduated huh?” she asks, though the words sound more like a statement than a question, like she already knows his answer before she even speaks.

“Just about,” he confirms, smirking. “Second I could.”

She nods, as though to put a point on his response, mark it down. “Figured. My brother did the same thing.”

“It look half as good on him as it does on me?” he teases, that same swooping feeling of vertigo, of venturing into uncharted territory filling his bones as he is drawn, inextricably into flirting, into the strange current that binds them together.

“Nah,” she grins sharply. “Doesn't hold a candle to yours.”

“Didn’t think so,” he grins, running a hand through his beard again. “I do have a pretty sweet beard.”

“His is spotty, never really grew in right,” she tells him, smiling soft and sweet in a way that catches Frank off guard, eyes distant with remembered humor. He wonders if she’s thinking about him, the brother she worries she might not ever see again with his spotty beard and at least some of Laurel’s rebellion, her defiance. He wonders about their relationship as he wonders about everything to do with Laurel, whether they get along, whether they act as a team against their father, whether they support each other in the face of his absence, his distance, their mother’s shaky grasp on reality. He wonders if she loves her brother, misses him, hopes that somehow he’ll come to her rescue. He thinks, almost sadly, that she probably knows he won’t, wonders how many of her imagined rescues include him. He wonders what they were like as children, Laurel and her nameless brother, wonders achingly, longingly to have known her then, to learn what she was like from Laurel’s own lips. “I still tease him about it, it was terrible.”

“I definitely made sure I had complete coverage before I tried to grow one,” he confesses with a sheepish grin. “Definitely didn't want any weird patches. I’ve got sisters too and they’d’ve done the same thing. Teased me until I died.”

Laurel laughs, almost a giggle, smooths her hands over the blanket again. “So,” she asks after a long moment. “You still gonna read or no?”

“I’m willing if you are,” he tells her, sliding to his feet when Laurel nods. “When do you want me to wake you back up?”

Her shoulders hitch and a little scowl glances across her lips. “Maybe an hour before you’re supposed to leave. We keep getting caught, so we should probably do something about that.”

He nods, sighs heavily as he picks up the book, settles back against the wall so he can watch her. He feels guilty about that too, guilty that he’s lying to Chris, guilty that he can’t just be honest with the other man, let him know that yeah, he’s been untying Laurel, letting her work the tension, the stiffness out of her wrists, her ankles, but she hasn’t been trying anything, hasn’t been doing anything to risk their plan, jeopardize their payday. He feels guilty about choosing Laurel, choosing loyalty to her over his longstanding partnership with Chris. But not guilty enough to change, to tell Chris what he’s been doing, knowing the other man won’t approve, will tell Martin what's been boiling between them. “Yeah, we’ll make sure you're tied up long before my buddy plans on coming down.”

“You still gonna get me Italian?” she asks, struggling with her bound hands to pull the blanket around her shoulders.

“Sure,” he tells her. “I promised you whatever you wanted.”

“Ok,” she nods slowly, gives another half hearted tug at the corner of the blanket, finally getting it to slip around her body, cocooning her, leaving only her head and neck exposed, a strange floating creature.

“You prefer pasta, pizza, what?”

“What’s your go-to, mama’s boy?” she asks with a little nod of her chin, jutting, almost like she’s challenging him, confronting him.

“I’m a pasta man myself,” he tells her, stretching his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles.

Laurel hums, tilts her head just fractionally as she regards him. “I bet red sauce is your thing.”

He half startles, looks up sharply at her to find Laurel watching him with her fierce calculating eyes. “It is,” he allows.

“Thought so,” she nods, pleased. “You prefer things subtle, layered. Hinting at things. Cream sauce is too obvious.”

“Hey,” he tries weakly, though its true, he much prefers red sauce. He feels almost like he has to put up a token fight, pretend that she can’t see straight through him like he’s a page to be read, like he’s a part of Laurel neither of them knew was missing, like she simply has to think the question and the answer is there, ready and dancing at her fingertips. “I like a good cream sauce.”

Laurel hums again, shrugs. “Maybe so. But you like the complexity of red sauce. The spices, the consistency, I bet you like turning it into a science then trying to turn that into an art.”

He chuckles, low and rough. “You trying to psychoanalyze me through pasta?”

Laurel holds his eyes, nods, her mouth pulling down at the corners like she’s fighting hard against a scowl. “Pasta sauce,” she clarifies. “But yeah, pretty much. It working?”

Frank laughs again. “It might be.”

“And you don’t turn it into meat sauce,” she tells him, nothing even resembling a question in her voice; instead its certain, measured, like she’s got a bead on Frank, has long ago figured out just about everything she’d need to know about him, pasta sauce included. “Though maybe you add sausage or meatballs later.”

“Course I add sausage or meatballs later,” he laughs. “Anything else’d be a crime.”

“And,” she continues, arching an eyebrow like he’s issued her some kind of challenge she can’t help but accept, like she can’t quite help but show off, show just how throughly she’s watched him, assessed him, completely and totally figured him out.

“You like the sauce to be thick, but you don't add any chunks of veggies to it. You get it thick on its own.”

“I do,” he allows, fixing her with his own slow, slanted smile. “But you, if you were sauce, you’d be Arrabbiata.”

Laurel fixes him with a piercing look, all humor instantly gone from her eyes, her face carved from stone. Her look hits him like a punch to the gut, unsure what he’s done wrong, certain he has. “Because its spicy?” she asks, her voice as slow as lava trickling down a hillside, swallowing, consuming everything in its path. “Because I’m Mexican? I really hope I don’t need to point out how racist that is.”

“No,” he assures her quickly. “Not because you’re Mexican. Because it looks like regular tomato sauce if you’re not paying attention. You’re expecting one thing and then you taste it and got these really strong flavors, garlics and chilies and it can kinda catch you off guard.”

He gets a little smile from her then, small and tentative like she’s not sure she really wants to be smiling, can’t quite help herself. Laurel looks down too, looks away, though he can see the first start of a blush bloom across her cheeks as she tries to duck beneath the cover of her blanket around her shoulders.

“And its subtle too, trust me,” he continues, grinning despite himself, pleased and proud that he can get her to crack a smile, that he can redeem himself in her eyes. He just wants to keep her smiling, feeling as he watches her grin like he’s earned something, fought for something almost precious. “When I first started cooking, I’d just try to pack as much flavor in as I could, overload things with spice and garlic. That’s not a good sauce. I had to slow down, figure out how the strong flavors could work together, enhance the tomatoes, without just dominating them, y’know. That’s the kinda arrabbiata you are.”

“You trying to compliment me with sauce comparisons?” she teases, though Frank could swear she looks pleased and taken aback by the suggestion.

“It working?”

Her grin spreads slow across her face before it penetrates her eyes, sets them softening as well, the ice behind them melting into cool, trickling water, clear and blue and Frank suddenly finds himself drowning in them. “It might be.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Laurel makes a request that Frank is really, really not down for.  
> But because he's a dummy and Stockholm syndrome is kind of a bitch, he's pretty much incapable of saying no to her...  
> And then they take about five steps back for every one they've gone forward

“How bout I bring you some of that?” he proposes. “Pasta Arrabbiata. Really show you what I mean?”

“I could be persuaded,” she tells him, same slow grin stretching wider until he can see a hint of teeth in her smile, glinting sharp and dangerous. “As long as you load it up with some parm.”

“I’m not a complete monster,” he tells her, wondering if this will be another moment she seizes to remind him that yes, he really is. Laurel doesn't need to remind him though, he thinks, Frank is already thinking it, the knowledge has already seeped into his bones, settled against his skin like a tattoo. “Of course I’ll bring you parm.”

Laurel just nods, allowing the moment to pass, allowing the opportunity to remind Frank of what he is slip away, out of her grasp. If it were anyone else, Frank would say that it was inadvertent, simply that Laurel had missed the opening, the opportunity that he presented her with. Frank knows that’s not true, not with Laurel certainly, who, he’s becoming more and more confident picks up on everything, every subtlety both said and unsaid. No, he’s confident that he can say she saw the opening and turned away, made the choice not to slip her knife between his ribs again, not to hurt him, remind him of the terrible things he’s done, the terrible person he is. He sees a slight tightening at the skin around her eyes, a slight pull of the muscles there, so subtle he almost misses it, overlooks it, but he doesn't, catches the little telling play of her muscles and he knows she’s felt the urge to snap at him, to hurt him, knows she’s smothered it down again.

Somehow though, it hurts worse, knowing she had the chance and made the choice not to take it, somehow that’s worse than if she’d wanted to wound him with her words. He doesn't deserve her forgiveness, doesn't deserve anything less than Laurel hating him with everything inside her, wanting to destroy him with that strange terrible fierceness she carries just below the surface of her skin. It hurts him worse knowing she could, knowing somehow she doesn't hate him enough to take the opportunity that comes her way, gnaws away at his heart, at the thin skin of his throat. It makes guilt chase loathing like poison through his veins knowing what he deserves, knowing somehow, some way she’s given him a reprieve, granted him mercy he will never deserve.

“Thank you,” she tells him and the loathing, the dull, bitter ache grows worse until he can barely breathe for it, a tight choking pain around his neck, a weight around his ankles. He knows exactly what this strange, sharp girl is doing to him, twisting him around until he can barely think for it, but he just doesn't know how she’s done it; what strange spell she’s woven around him, wrapped around him like a thick, heady fog until his very soul is heavy with it. He knows what’s happening, much as he may try to resist, but he doesn't know how, how she’s gained such power over him in such a short, sudden period of time.

“You want some garlic bread too?” he asks, voice thick and rough with something like emotion. “If I can swing it?”

“Course,” she laughs, short and sharp. “Is it bad that half of what I’m doing down here is just fantasizing about food? You think that’s normal.”

“Yes,” Frank breathes, because again, she’s cut through to the heart of things, the confounding oddities of being imprisoned, isolated, left with endless horrible hours of uncertainty and confusion and boredom. He used to dream about food in juvie, his mom’s cooking mostly, but other things too, cheesesteaks and fries and Belgian waffles with chocolate and bananas and whipped cream, used to fantasize about the first meal he’d have when he finally got out, got food that didn’t cost $1.47 a prisoner to produce, that had flavor and texture and could be mulled over, savored. 

When he finally got out though, reality intruded, as it always did and Frank got so hungry halfway home that he forced his brother to pull off, find some fast food place off 476, he doesn't even remember what it was, ate a lukewarm cheeseburger and some limp tater tots and threw up half an hour later, overwhelmed by the rich food, the grease. It was a week before he wanted to even try his mom’s ziti again, wanted to make sure he could stomach it, appreciate it. But at the time, the fantasies had sustained him, kept him reaching for an end to his confinement that always seemed just out of his reach, like some promised land he was doomed never to reach. 

He knows Laurel’s doing the same thing, clinging to the things that feel most normal, food and comfort and trying desperately to hold onto them in this place that is trying to fracture her mind, shatter her like glass, break her down until there’s nothing left but a body, a shell of a person. He wants to tell her what comes next, the growing list of things that will exist only in her head, music and replays of baseball games and elaborate ideas about what her family is up to at that exact moment, trying to recall the plots of a thousand different movies until they all meld together into some garish, terrible nightmare. He wants to warn her, isn't sure he’d be doing her anything like a favor, like letting her know the next stage of a wasting illness so that she’s always watchful, always fearful of the next doomed thing that comes, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for disaster itself to walk in the front door. No, Frank thinks, perhaps its better not to know at all, perhaps its better to be taken by surprise, and perhaps, if she’s very lucky, she’ll never get to that point and the ransom will be paid before she’s left trying to remember how Jurassic Park ends.

“I think it would be weird if you weren’t thinking about food,” he admits.

“Good,” she chuckles. “Cause I’ve been thinking about donuts for like three hours now.”

“You want some of those too?” he asks. “Not sure I can pull donuts off with dinner without anyone thinking its weird, but maybe for breakfast again tomorrow.”

“I…yeah, alright,” she tells him, that same strange narrowing of her eyes that’s really only the tightening of the muscles at her brow, where her eyes curve into the rest of her face, smooth arcing curves. “Donuts sound good.”

“Good,” he nods firmly as though that settles things.

“So, uh,” she begins then, fidgeting nervously within the confines of the blanket around her shoulders, eyes skittering away from his like she can’t bring herself to look at him when she’s making the request. “Do you think anyone would let me shower? Without watching the whole time?”

Frank scowls, the question catching him off guard, though he should have known it was coming. “No,” he admits. “But I’ll let you anyway. You’ll have to put the same clothes back on, unless you wait till I’m down next. I could grab you something. There’s always a Walmart around.”

“No,” she tells him, her frown cutting deep lines into her face, the edges of her mouth. “That’s fine. It just, I want to wash this all off. Blood and dirt and other people’s hands. I want to feel like I belong to me.”

He nods, understanding. “I doubt there’s a towel down here, but I’ll stay outside if you wanna risk it. Promise I won’t watch. Ten minutes though, no more. And I’m keeping your hands tied. Sorry.”

Laurel huffs out a quick breath, like she’s annoyed but expected that to be Frank’s answer. “How’m I getting my shirt off if my hands are tied, stupid?”

“You’ll figure something out,” he tells her, shrugging, knowing with certainty its possible. Hard, sure, and he’s not sure how painful it’ll be with a broken wrist, but he’s slipped plenty of items of clothing on and off his body while cuffed, slipping the material through the minuscule spaces between the cuffs and his wrist and over his hand, pulled it through again so he can remove the item. She’s only got a thin tank top on and he didn’t pull her cuffs that tight, he expects with a little imagination, a little finesse she’ll get it figured out.

She scowls. “I’m really not sure I will unless that something is you uncuffing me.”

Frank shrugs, tries to keep himself from smirking at her sudden helplessness, her sudden boiling frustration. It would be cute if he allowed himself to think about it too long, think too hard about her heavy, iron glare, about the way her nose almost crinkles as she watches him. “Not gonna be that.”

“Then what?” she growls.

Frank shrugs again, clicks his tongue. “Don’t tell me you need my help?” he asks, smirking maybe just a little too wide, a little too cocky.

“I don’t,” she snaps. “I’ll get it sorted without you.”

Frank chuckles. “I’ll make it fifteen. Give you an extra five minutes to figure out how to get the shirt off. Sound fair?”

“Fine,” she tells him like a sigh. “Deal.”

“Deal.”

She throws the blanket off her shoulders, stands with only a short, sharp grimace as she uses her bound hands to push herself into a standing position, a little hiss of air as pain shoots through he wrist.  
Frank watches her go, doesn't bother to move from where he’s sitting against the wall. “Leave the door open,” he calls after her. “I wanna know you’re not up to anything.”

“Only thing on my mind is getting clean,” she throws over her shoulder, slipping into the bathroom.

She leaves it open though, as he asked, and Frank settles back against the wall, cracks his book again, content not to bother to time her, certain she’ll keep her own time, will stick as close to the agreement as she can. Its not that he trusts her, because he doesn't, not really, but somehow he knows that this, at least, she’ll honor, won’t see the point in making it an issue, a point of contention, won’t risk him taking it away if she misbehaves.

He hears the hiss of the shower, the rasp of the curtain drawing back, even thinks he hears the whisper of her clothes dropping to the tile. He begins reading, turns his mind from Laurel, turns it back to his book, forces himself not to think of her, not to focus on the things racing through his brain, the things that fill him with equal parts wanting and guilt-tinged revulsion.  
He’s dropped into the book, focused on it totally by the time Laurel emerges, dripping hair curling around her shoulders, trailing drops of water along the ridge of her collarbone, the long pale span of her chest, her face fresh and scrubbed clean.

“Good shower?” he asks as she emerges, a pleased, shy smile playing around her lips as she runs her good hand through her hair, pushing back the strands, tight against her scalp, away from her face, her broken wrist trailing after, limp and heavy.

She nods. “Not bad.”

“You ever get that shirt off?” he teases, nodding quickly, eyebrows raised. “Looks like you did since its not soaked.”

“I did,” Laurel says after a moment, something in her voice sounding cautious, wary.

“Knew you’d figure it out,” he tells her, watching the little hitch to her shoulders as a long drop of water slides down the curve of her neck. “Even got it back on.”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “No thanks to you,” she tells him, though there’s little heat behind her words and even the first hesitant cracks that edge towards a smile.

“I uh, I could still grab you some clean clothes,” he offers, eyes fixed on the book in his lap, scared to look back up, scared to see her frown return, scared that it won’t. “If you wanted.”

Laurel’s scowl when he glances up could cut glass, sharp and dangerous. “No,” she says, head twitching to emphasize the point, as she reaches down, snags the blanket up off the floor, throws it casually over one shoulder, around her neck pulls it down across her body. “No thank you.”

“Alright,” he tells her. “Just let me know if they start growing legs.”

She settles back against the wall, drops down next to him, so close he can feel the heat of her thighs against his own, pulls the blanket up over the dark, wet strands of her hair, tenting around her body like a hood. He can barely see her face, only her nose, the sharp jut of her chin and the burning coals of her eyes, fierce blue orbs. Frank fights off the urge to ease closer, let his leg rest against hers, his fingertips graze against her elbow, the soft skin there, fights the urge to scoot farther away, retreat from her. “Will you read now?” she asks, completely ignoring his words.

He nods, flips to the beginning again, begins reading, Laurel’s body close against him, his heart rate picking up to a pounding drumbeat at her proximity, even faster as he hopes, desperately, that Laurel can’t hear the stutter in his breath.

He watches her eyes close, letting his words wash over her, allows her guard to relax, some of the tension and pain slipping from her skin. He’s probably read about ten minutes when Laurel speaks, cuts him off at the end of a paragraph.

“Anyone ever tell you you have a nice voice?” she asks him, voice slow and rough like she’s half asleep, words slipping from her lips before she can really consider them, rethink her statement.

“Can’t say that they have,” he admits, shoulders hitching as he finds himself smiling, small and slanted and one he knows is just for himself, knows Laurel can’t see it, doesn't notice it. No, just like he’s not sure her words are intended for him, his smile isn’t really intended for her.

“Well you do,” she assures him, words sliding together like she can’t quite summon the strength to keep them separate, keep them from slurring together like one long, run on word, like her thoughts can’t quite take pauses or punctuation. “Even if no one tells you. Its deep, but not too deep, and rough and smooth, which, yes, I know it’s a contradiction.”

Frank laughs, nudges his shoulder softly into hers. “It is a contradiction.”

“ _You're_ a contradiction,” she murmurs with something like vehemence.

“Might be,” he chuckles again.

She hums and he can feel the full weight of her smile, thin but wide, even if he can’t quite see it under the blanket shielding her. “And its perfect maybe,” she tells him, words like a sigh.

“But not too perfect?” he teases.

“No,” Laurel shakes her head, yawns against his shoulder, not quite touching. “Not too perfect. Like, you're smart, but you don’t sound too smart.”

“Uh, thanks,” he chuckles again as she gives him another bracing yawn. “Anything else?”

He can hear the rasp of fabric as she shakes her head. “No,” she tells him. “That was it I think.”

“Alright,” he tells her softly. “Just checking.”

“Well,” she says again then, voice suddenly breathy, her words suddenly coming in quick, clipped bursts, hesitant and timid.

“Everything except for this.”

And suddenly she’s reaching out again, hands slipping out from underneath the fabric of the blanket, skirting across his knee to take his left hand in her uninjured one, knitting their fingers together gently, while her broken wrist almost brackets his hand, pressing close against the back of his hand, the skin and bone and muscle. Its pure instinct which sets Frank tightening his fingers around her, a pure base wanting that he chooses to give into, chooses to let himself be taken under by, chooses to drown in.

He can feel every place where their bodies touch, from the place against his bicep where her shoulder presses against his skin, down through where their hips collide almost harshly, the angles and sharp spans knocking together, down to the place where her toes brush against his shin, solid and warm. He can feel every atom of her body as it collides with his, every nerve in his body buzzing with awareness of her, tuned to her like a frequency he can’t lose, half thinks that if it were possible, he would let Laurel’s cells slip inside his.

He can feel the instant she falls asleep, limbs going heavy and loose, breath slowing and deepening until Frank swears he can feel it whisper of her breath against his skin. Her chin falls forward, nods against her chest until the blanket shields her entirely from sight, listing slightly to the side, almost arcing into his body. He wishes for it, with a furious burning hunger, a desperate craving, wishes for her shoulders to crush against his, wishes for Laurel to lean her head against his arm, his neck, wishes to hear the quick sighs, quicker whispers of her slumber.

He’s not sure why it takes him off guard when she falls asleep, but it does, Frank stutters and falters in his reading before he realizes he’s reading aloud to no one, stops and falls silent. He watches her sleep instead, the slow rise and fall of the huddle of blankets, the soft snuffling sounds of her dreams.

Frank wants to pull away, tells himself he should, just winds up freezing, stiff and terrified, as Laurel’s body sags against his, too terrified to even breathe, too terrified of what it means that the girl has fallen asleep against him, head listing gently against his chest. He doesn't want to contemplate even half the things falling asleep against him could mean; fragile trust and a kind of hesitant affection that hints at maybe more than the awkward, uncertain truces they’ve been striking then calling off in a hail of bullets that leave them both wounded and alone.

Their hands remain joined, Franks fingers bracketed by Laurel’s atop his knee, even as her body goes limp and boneless and gentle. He half contemplates pulling his hand away, rejects the idea completely when he gives a little halfhearted tug to slip his fingers from hers and she makes a noise like a sigh, like a groan, fingers curling tighter around his.

Frank can’t, won’t contemplate the things her touch may mean, rejects the idea that it has any meaning at all, that there’s anything her touch could signify, anything beyond the exhaustion of her body.

He flips a few hundred pages forward in the book, begins where he left off when he was reading on his own, feeling like a record skipping and jumping and never able to find its place, find the rhythm, the melody, all harsh discordant notes and beats that skitter and jump in a panicked frenzy.

She sleeps for a few hours, long enough that Frank’s hand, his shoulder gets pins and needles that grow worse and worse until they vanish completely, until he isn't sure he can still feel his arm. He tried to move when he first felt them, tried to shift his arm slightly so that he could coax feeling back into the limb, but Laurel again gave that little high noise of disapproval and Frank gave up, welcomed the pain as only a fraction of the punishment he deserves from her.

But eventually she sighs, her breath stuttering, catching and her pulls awake, body suddenly jerking upright with a little gasp.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” he says, his own voice rough and thick like he just woke as well, brushing his thumb across the back of her knuckles, hoping she’s still asleep enough she won’t notice the touch.

Laurel makes a noise that he takes to be agreement, though she carefully slips her hands back into her lap, slips them away from his, retreating back into herself. He’s not sure how she does it without moving, but suddenly there’s not a millimeter of her body that lies against his, the loss sudden and jarring, leaving him cold, leaving a deep ache across his chest that slowly climbs until it reaches his throat, strangles his breath.

He wonders what he’s done to cause the loss, realizes a second too late that it probably has nothing to do with him, that it probably never has. Laurel’s decisions to touch him, to speak to him, to reach any kind of point of understanding, strike any kind of truce, and to regret those decisions seconds or hours or minutes later, to feel guilty and angry and disgusted probably have nothing to do with him at all, probably would occur even if he didn’t exist at all. He doesn't matter in this, in the things that she feels, in the thoughts that rattle around in her brain, that gnaw away at her. She accuses him of treating her as just a body in this disaster of a kidnapping, but, Frank realizes, much longer than a second too late, he might well be just as much a body, just a stand-in for a hundred thousand ideas, emotions that eat away at her resolve, the ice around her heart.

He doesn't know what to do to become more than that, knows even as he hopes for it that he doesn't deserve it, not from her, doesn't even deserve to contemplate the thought. If she’s just a body, a means to an end, then well, he deserves no less.

And because he can’t do anything else, Frank flips back to where he left off reading when she fell asleep, picks back up again smoothly, doesn't know what other apology he can give her than pretending that nothing has changed, that everything between them remains the same as its always been, distant and guarded.

“Lars?” she whispers finally after he’s read some thirty pages more.

“Yeah?” Frank asks once he’s finished the sentence he was reading, his thumb holding the book open, careful not to shut it in case she doesn't want more conversation from him, desperately trying to make it clear that he’ll give her as much or as little connection as she wants.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks after remaining silent for so long he wonders if that was all she wanted to say, if he should resume reading and let her mull over whatever question prompted her to speak again.

He shrugs. “Yeah, course you can.”

He watches her uninjured hand ball nervously into a fist then relax, watches her fingers shake with something he can’t quite decide is fear or not. “Do you know how to use a gun?”

“What d'you mean?”

He hears the tremor in her voice, can hear in her words the way her teeth worry at her lower lip even though he can’t see evidence of it, not with the way she’s drawn the blanket close and tight around her body, throwing her face into impenetrable shadow. “Have you shot a gun before?”

“I have,” he admits slowly, unsure of where this line of questioning is going, unsure of why it has her bordering on the edges of what he decides is fear, trembling and worried.

“Then, uh, if it comes to it, will you kill me?” she asks, the words suddenly coming out in a rushed tumble, tripping over each other in their haste. “If my dad doesn't pay and you're going to kill me will you be the one to do it?”

“Laurel...”

“I mean it,” she tells him fiercely, her voice sharp as she cuts across his words, seizing his hand in hers, so hard its almost painful, refusing to slacken her grip. “I mean it. If someone's going to shoot me, I want it to be you.”

“Why?” he asks wondering if thats because she wants to torture him, wants to mete out one final punishment to him for the things he's done, for Tasing her and taking her and tying her up down here in this basement, for being the one that started everything that lead to her death or if its because she wants one last final mercy, wants to be killed by someone she almost likes, someone who doesn't make her stomach churn and her breath race.

“I don’t want to give that asshole the satisfaction,” she grits out though Frank can still see the fear churning behind her eyes, the blue-grey of rolling waves. “I want it to be you. I want it to be someone who'll make it quick, who wont want me to suffer. I want the last thing I see to be someone who's gonna at least be a little sad I'm gone. So thats why.”

Frank nods as he tries to choke back a sob because its true, he's going to be worse than sad if she's gone, and not just because her death will make him a murderer in a way he can’t qualify, can’t take back, excuse. He was an attempted murderer before, in juvie, but the distinction was there, always there, and while he's taken a life before, its always been when death couldn't be avoided, when he had to act to protect himself, his partners from the same fate but now, well, now it will make him a cold blooded killer. A murderer plain and simple. He's not sad only because of himself, of what it will mean for him, not even half because of what it means for him. He's going to mourn her as though she were a friend, and maybe she is, a strange and stilted one, a friend who never quite got there, mourn her as someone who was senselessly killed, as someone who could have been someone to him had things gone differently in both their lives. He’s not sure he'll ever get over her death and his throat closes with the knowledge that the likelihood of it happening grows closer with every second, a blade hanging over both of them that slides ever nearer.

“Will you then?” she asks in a breathless whisper, something edging towards desperation in her glance, in the way she clings to his fingers.

“I will,” he swears before he can reconsider, before he can think too hard, too long about what that promise means; for her, for him, for the entire endless disaster of a crime.

Laurel sighs, leans back as her eyes slip closed. “Thank you,” she says and Frank thinks he can see the hint of tears clinging to her lashes. “I don't want anyone else doing it. If I’m going to die here, I want it to be you. You're the only one that deserves to do it.” 

He wants to tell her she’s not going to die, that its not going to come to that, that her dad’s going to pay the ransom, because he can’t conceive of a world in which a parent would choose to walk away from their child, wouldn't do everything, anything in their power to get their child back, to save them, protect them, but he can’t, he won’t. Frank promised he wouldn’t lie to her and the thing is, he doesn't know, doesn't know what the future holds; Laurel’s peaceful release or a single gunshot shattering through the basement, doesn't know if her father will pay, doesn't know if Martin won’t just decide Laurel needs to die anyway. He’s never been less certain of something so simple, something so complex as life and death.

“You’ll make it painless right?” she asks him then, voice tiny. “Or try to at least?”

He nods around the hard lump of something like grief. “Yeah,” he rasps.

“Thank you,” she says again, her fingers still clinging tightly to his.

“If there’s any way to keep you alive though,” he tells her, feeling like he’s making a vow, swearing an oath. “I’m gonna find it. I’m gonna keep you alive if I can. I promise.”

And now she pulls her hand away, slowly, so that he feels every moment of the loss of that contact as she slips her hands back beneath the blanket, back into her lap. “There is a way though,” she tells him harshly. “You know there is. You just have to let me go.”

“I can’t,” he rasps, guilt and grief and anger at her, at Martin, at himself most of all chasing themselves, one after another, through his veins like fire. “You know I can’t. He’d just come after you, find you again, probably kill you for it.”

“Then call the cops, tell them where I am,” she tells him and if it were anyone else, Frank might think they were pleading with him, begging him for mercy. But not Laurel. Her voice remains low, steady and controlled and he finds himself marveling again at her determination, at the icy force of her will. “Sneak out, hightail it back to Jersey or wherever you're from and wash your hands of this whole thing.”

“I can’t,” he repeats miserably. “I couldn't send Ch…couldn't send my buddy to jail for this, even if it didn’t get me killed for selling my crew out, get you killed too for running.”

Her jaw clenches tight, the angles of it sharp and dangerous. “I’m dying in either scenario here,” she points out, voice dropping until its barely more than a low growl and yet there’s something casual, almost flippant in her tone, something that speaks of already having accepted the inevitability of her own death, the grim fact that she will probably never emerge from this basement. “I’d rather do it on my own terms.”

“I get it,” he tells her sadly. “I do. But you know I can’t.”

“No,” she snaps, anger springing to the surface, both sudden and inevitable. “You don’t, you have no fucking idea.”

Frank sighs, heavily, scrubs a hand across his beard. “You’re right, I really don’t. But you don't either. I’ve got choices to make, its not just you I’m trying to protect.”

“I’m the only person that’s dying here,” Laurel says, fixing him with a thousand yard stare, looking through him as though he doesn't exist, as though he no longer matters to her. “So fuck you and fuck your choices.”

“Laurel,” he pleads but there’s not even a flicker of recognition in her eyes, not even a hint that she’s heard him, just her long, cold stare, piercing straight through his heart. “C’mon, you gotta be reasonable here, understand where I’m coming from.”

She turns away then, face still expressionless, a blank mask, turns away and pulls the blanket closer around her body, walls off herself completely to him, to his words, walls her heart to him.

“Laurel,” he repeats, knowing already its no use, knowing already its too late. “I’m willing to see things your way, you gotta be able to see things from mine. Or we can’t strike anymore deals.”

He expects her to react to that at least, to what essentially amounts to a threat, a clumsy attempt at blackmail, but he gets no response from the huddled mess of blankets that’s become Laurel.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her beseechingly. “You know I am. I want to help, but there’s only so much I can do.”

Again, Frank feels like he’s talking to a wall, talking to the air, Laurel retreating far, far into herself, feels like he’s gone back in time two days, back when she refused to speak, refused to acknowledge that he even existed. It took him hours, hours and a shattered wrist and a phone call like torture to get her to even treat him as anything other than her mortal enemy, someone who was even worthy of continued breath. And now well, now he feels like he’s gone back to the start, burned all the inroads he’s made with her, betrayed her so completely Frank’s not sure he’ll ever recover, ever get back to the place they were five minutes ago, back when she asked him to kill her, took his hand in hers like he was her lifeline, her only way out. He’s not anymore, maybe never will be again. He grieves it, like a precious thing he’s lost forever, like a thing he didn’t even know he lost until it was too late, leaving nothing but an absence in its wake, a hollow ache over his heart, a deep clench across his throat that leaves him wondering, uncertain, if he’s made the wrong choice, suddenly certain he has. Frank’s not truly capable of understanding the value of oxygen, of breathing until he's drowning struggling for breath, his airways choked and compressed and his body craving something it had never noticed before, never cared about before but needs, cannot continue to exist without. The same is true, he knows now, of Laurel. 

And yet, it changes nothing, because for all he needs her to breathe, to survive at all, he can’t help her, can’t free her. He’d be losing more than breath if he did, he’d be losing the very essence of himself, and as much as it pains him, there’s nothing he can do. Its better for her to take her chances with her father, trust that he will come through, will pay to save her. Frank can’t betray Chris, his partner, not for anything, not for anyone, not this strange sharp girl with dangerous eyes who makes him feel like he’s found a place like grace, found a place like home.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway done kids!

Laurel doesn't retreat from him, doesn’t pointedly retreat to a different corner, doesn't even slide her body to the other side of the wall, she just shifts that fraction of an inch so that their bodies no longer brush, feather light against each other, tightens the blankets more securely around her shoulders and retreats back into silence, into derision.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats when its clear she’s retreated back into silence and glares and a deep, furious anger.

He can feel the shift in her body, a bracing tension like a flinch, like she’s waiting for a blow from him, waiting for another attack. He wonders if his words hurt her somehow, rejects that idea completely. He trusts, instinctively, that she won’t be thinking he’s going to hurt her, that she knows he never would, not if it could be helped, and even then, well he’s not sure he’d be able to and so the flinch startles him, confuses him, her silence leaving him to mull it over, turn it around in his brain while he examines it from every angle, contemplates its meaning.

Eventually though, it becomes clear Laurel is not going to speak, not going to give him the silent treatment for five minutes and get over it, forgive him his trespasses like a goddess doling out undeserved mercies. Eventually it becomes clear she means it, has washed her hands of him as a potential ally. 

It makes him wonder if she was playing him the whole time, the long con or the honey pot or some strange twisted thing she felt would work to get him on her side, get her freed. He can’t say it didn’t entirely work. He doesn’t think that’s it thought, think she’s resisted him with far more strength, determination than he has, has fought her instincts, the slow pull of her nature towards Frank with everything inside her, probably would have fought that thing for longer were she not exhausted, injured, ragged and frayed. He thinks she might have resisted the thing brewing inside them forever.

He cracks the book again, deciding to score the one measly victory he can, deciding to do the one thing he thinks might hurt her; by ignoring her, by pretending she hasn't hurt him at all, that he doesn’t care if she talks to him or not. He thinks she can probably sense the lie, knows exactly what he’s doing, and yet, well, he has nothing else, no way to hurt her more than she’s been hurt already and he’s just lashing out like a petty child, trying to wound her in whatever way he can. 

Frank doesn’t pick up where he left off when he was reading alone, decides to extend that small olive branch to her, starts back where he was when she fell asleep, continues reading. He doesn't know if she’s even paying attention, even hears his voice at all through the thick cocoon of her rage but he continues anyway because she’s asked for it before, complimented his voice and he knows that its something, something small he can do to bridge the gulf between them, heal the sudden, sharp rift, even as he tries to pretend like its not there at all, like she hasn’t retreated behind silence and rage, behind walls so thick he knows he won’t be able to break through unless she lets him.

She doesn’t soften, doesn’t thaw for hours, not even when its time for Chris to come and relieve him. Instead, he thinks, Laurel simply estimates time, guesses at when the change will come, when she will need to retreat back to the chair. Frank helps too, pausing in his reading at one point to mention, offhandedly, that she probably has about two more hours before he comes down again. About an hour before that, he hears Laurel shift, the mound of blankets shaking slightly and she stands, letting the fabric drop from her shoulders, slide down her body and pool around her feet. She stalks, silently towards the chair and drops down into it, heavy and resigned, a long, long sigh spilling from her lips.

“You want me to just do your legs?” he asks, glancing up, pausing in his reading, watching the tension, the anger roll from her body in waves. “Or arms too?”

Laurel gives no indication that she’s heard him, barely even blinks at his words, simply sits in the chair as she stares at the wall, ignoring Frank completely, staring at the wall as though there’s nothing else in the basement worth staring at, nothing else that can come close to holding her attention. 

He secures her legs, then cuts the ties around her wrists so she can bring her arms behind the chair, lets him secure her to the wooden slats of the chair, leans back heavily and sighs again once he’s fully tied her up.

“You still want Italian?” he asks her, rising to his feet, brushing his palms across his thighs, across the stiff material of his jeans. “Or you change your mind?”

Laurel just stares past him, stares through him like he doesn’t matter, like he’s not even there, leans back against the chair and closes her eyes, like she doesn’t even need to pay attention to her surroundings because she’s totally and utterly alone.

He shrugs, tries not to let it get to him, make him question his own existence, make him wonder if he’s actually speaking aloud. “Italian it is I guess.”

He goes back to the book, doesn’t have any other solution; goes back to the book, reads until he hears the creaking of the stairs, the slip of the lock, until Chris emerges at the bottom of the stairs, already looking tired, already looking unhappy.

“Anything interesting happen today?” Chris asks, scowling as his eyes track towards Laurel, still staring at the wall, ignoring both of them.

“Martin made a video,” Frank offers with his own scowl. “To send to the dad.”

“Yeah?” Chris asks, eyebrows raising in curiosity.

Frank nods. “Has until Halloween,” he explains. “After that…”

“After that no one’s getting anything they want,” the other man finishes flatly. “Not us, not her old man.”

“Certainly not her,” Frank adds before he can help himself.

Chris nods, mouth pressed into a thin line. “I think it’s pretty damn certain there’s not a chance in hell she’s gonna get anything approaching what she wants.”

Frank can’t help but agree, thinks that probably the only thing Laurel wants is an end to her pain, to go home, to retreat into herself in peace, without having to ever think about these horrible few days again. He knows that’s a futile hope, a laughable one, certain she’ll never be able to forget, will never rest easy again.

“What’re you interested in for dinner?” he asks instead, trying to phrase it as a question so Chris doesn’t suspect Frank already has a plan, already knows what he’s going to be running out for. “I was thinking Italian.”

“We got Cuban sandwiches for lunch,” Chris says offhandedly, pulling the empty chair forward, legs scraping high and shrieking against the floor, sinking heavy into the chair, legs kicked out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. “There’s an extra for you.”

“And her?” Frank asks, keeping his voice low and casual, giving a little nod in her direction.

Chris scowls. “Man upstairs says she’s gotta make it through till breakfast. No extra dinner run.”

“Seriously?” Frank asks, a dangerous edge cutting across his words like a blade.

Chris nods, shrugs. “I’m just the messenger man.”

“What if I just brought something down anyway?” Frank pushes.

“Dunno,” the other man shrugs again. “But I can’t imagine it’d be good. Boss was pretty insistent about making her wait till tomorrow.”

Frank makes a noise like a growl before he can help it, hazards a glance towards Laurel, her eyes still shut and her head leaned back, turned up towards the ceiling, offering no reaction to the conversation taking place around her, nothing even acknowledging their presence. “Alright,” he sighs, knowing there’s nothing he can do, no way around Martin's instructions, not for another twelve hours.

His stomach sinks, clenching hard because she doesn’t deserve that, doesn’t deserve to be starved in addition to locked up, kept immobile and unmoving, her arm shrieking with pain, her side marred with bruising. She doesn’t deserve any of this.  
But theres’s nothing Frank can do to change it, nothing he can do to change the inevitable outcome of this entire operation, no matter what Laurel may think. He can’t change Martin’s mind, can’t change the terrible things that may be stalking their heels. No, he’s just a hired gun, that’s all he is and Frank can’t save her, not from a bullet between the eyes, not twelve hours without food. She ought to realize he’s just a pawn, powerless, that he’s never going to be able to save her, never able to turn the hesitant affection, understanding that burns between them into anything more, into anything like a reprieve, anything like salvation.

“He say why she’s not getting dinner?” Frank presses because he can’t help himself, has to know what he can, dig until he reaches the bottom, reaches the truth of things.

Chris shrugs. “Not to me.”

“Fair enough,” Frank nods, quick because he can see the other man’s eyes narrow and his jaw tighten and Frank knows he needs to back off before he raises anymore suspicion. “I’ll grab donuts for breakfast when I come back, yeah?”

Chris grins, nods. “Between you and me though,” he says as Frank turns towards the stairs, smile slipping into a hard, stern expression. “I think he’s just trying to break her. She won’t eat, so he’s not offering anymore. Making her ask for it.”

“I’m not doing that,” Frank announces vehemently, arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t care what he’s trying to do, I’m not starving her to make a point.”

Chris hums, lips twisting. “Its your choice man,” the other man says. “But think about whether you’re making things better or worse for her, ok.”

Frank nods, his jaw tight, desperate to keep the anger from showing across his face. “I don’t see how starving her’s gonna make anything better.”

He shrugs again. “I never tell you what to do, you know that. But I do tell you when you’re being an idiot, and you’re doing it now. She’s not gonna die from skipping a meal and you’re only gonna piss Martin off more.”

“You think she’s gonna be anymore likely to listen to us if we’re starving her?” Frank snaps.

Chris rolls his eyes, sighs. “Chill out. She’s skipping a meal, we ain't starving her. And you, you’re getting all kinds a twisted up about her and its not a good look man.”

“I’m trying not to be an asshole,” Frank snaps, scrubbing a hand across his beard.

“No,” Chris tells him, pushing his hair back away from his face tiredly. “You’e trying to be her friend or something. Lemme make it 100% clear: you’re not. We’re not. We’re keeping her alive, that’s it. She doesn’t have to like us, hell, she probably shouldn't like us. And you need to stop thinking of yourself as more like a guard and less like a fucking babysitter.”

Frank sighs, turns away, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.” He’s not lying of course, would never lie to Chris, because he does get it. He gets why Chris needs to think of her as a body, a blank absence and not a person. And he gets too why he can’t do that, why his mind simply rejects the idea of Laurel as anything other than a person. 

Chris doesn't think of himself as an ex-con, one step away from going back to cinderblock walls and steel bars and constant noise, constant light. Chris never really has. He spent three, three and a half years in juvie, long enough to know the ropes, to make himself something in the chaotic, churning power structure that relied largely on size, on length of stay, on the ability to back up words with fists and knives, but not quite long enough that his identity was wrapped up in the idea of himself as a prisoner, as an incarcerated body.

Frank though, well, Frank’s been out two years now and still has spent nearly half his life behind bars, went in before he was even close to fully formed, before he understood in any meaningful way who he was. His whole identity, his whole sense of the world, of himself was created inside that locked adolescent treatment facility, in a world of restraints and bars and meals that sometimes never came, guards who’s whims could shape his whole week, his whole month. He knows it, isn’t quite so deluded as to not understand that, much as he may try not to think back on that lost decade, tries to bury it behind a false reality he’s constructed for himself, that he pretends he lived instead of the last decade in a cell barely bigger than his car.

He can’t do what Chris does and he knows it. But he can’t explain all that to the other man, because they’re brothers, they’re honest about everything, but Frank can’t tell him he still wakes everyday thinking he’s back there, still isn't sure that the world outside juvie is real, can be trusted. So he knows he’s letting himself get too invested in Laurel, identify too much with her, tied up and wounded and starving and fierce, he knows it, he just doesn’t care, doesn’t even want to care because Frank knows what its like and wouldn't wish her fate on anyone, doesn’t want to let himself be someone that can do these things to a person, who can do the things that were done to him when he was small and weak and powerless. He doesn’t want to be that kind of man, that kind of person when he’s offered a taste of power, offered the chance to be a guard and not a prisoner.

“Good,” Chris sighs, edges closer to Frank so he can peer into his eyes, asses something that he sees there. “Look I know you hate kidnappings, and this one is worse than most. But you just gotta hold it together for a few more days, ok? Just stop thinking of her as your little sister or whatever it is she’s got you thinking. Better yet, stop thinking of her at all. Just read your books and make sure she doesn’t move and we’ll all get outta here fat and sassy and paid. You good?”

Frank nods, stomach sinking because he’s not good, he’s so far from good he’s lost all signposts for good a hundred miles back. He’s in so deep he’s half drowned already.

“Look,” Chris says, voice low, catching him by the elbow, turning him away from Laurel, edging him away from her shackled body like he doesn’t trust Frank to think straight around her. “Whatever you think she is, she’s not some innocent child. She tried to tackle me yesterday coming out of the bathroom. Full on rugby tackle, sent me straight into the wall. Its lucky the door was locked cause she was halfway upstairs by the time I realized what’d happened. So whatever you think, just know she wants to kill you too.”

Frank must gape a little too long, mouth hanging open as half a hundred questions dart across his mind. He thinks that’s where the bruises up and down her ribs must be from, except she implied Martin had done it, cause the injury and he’s never known Chris to be needlessly violent, never known him to seek pain or revenge when there are other way to ensure he gets what he wants.

“Oh don’t worry,” Chris tells him, fixing Frank with a little eye roll and a cocky grin. “She’s not gonna try anything else. Not after boss man got done with her for coming at me.”

“He beat the shit out of her,” Frank growls, his hands tightening into fists so Chris can’t see how furious he is, how her pain tears at him, setting guilt spiking through his blood at the things they’ve done to her.

Chris nods, shrugs. “He did. And now she’s learned not to try anything.” He’s perfectly nonchalant, not even throwing a guilty, lingering glance towards Laurel as he speaks, as though what’s been done to her, the bruises walking up her sides, the pain that comes with every breath was deserved, warranted because she attempted a futile, half-baked escape, because she’s terrified and hurt and certain of her death and uncertain of just about everything else, a cornered animal desperately searching for a way out of the trap.

“Or now she’s gonna kill us the next time she tries anything,” Frank points out with more force than he intended. “Because she knows what’ll happen if she leaves us alive.”

The other man chuckles, more like a scoff, fixes Frank with a long, familiar look, derisive, like Frank is a small, stupid child, like Frank hasn’t learned a damn thing in the ten years Chris has been looking out for him, still needs the other man to look out for him, protect him, think for him. “The hell she gonna kill us with? She’s tied up, got a broken wrist and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet. Only thing she can do is catch us off guard the couple times we uncuff her to piss. And really, the both of us should always be on guard.”

Frank frowns, pulls his arm from Chris’ grasp. “We’re making things worse man,” he insists. “By treating her like this. I know you don’t see it, but I do.”

That skeptical look, tinged with derision flashes across Chris’ face again. “I don’t know how you think we can make things worse,” he points out. “She’s not talking, not eating. Only helpful thing she's done is not die on us.”

Frank wants to retort that she’s eaten with him, talked to him until he went and blew it, but he chokes that impulse down, doesn’t betray her that way, doesn’t give away the truce they’ve struck, certain that if he speaks of it he’ll never get another.

He can’t tell Chris about the delicate balance they’ve found, about Laurel’s softening to his attempts at kindness, understanding. He wishes he could, wishes he could explain that she’s spoken to him, almost more than he ever could have expected, allowed him access to her mind in a way that continues to astound him, catch him off guard, that she ate the food he brought for her, even requested he bring her Italian. He wants to explain that kindness has gotten him farther than anger, than pain and punishment have taken Chris and Martin, but he balks, afraid, before the words leave his mouth. 

He’s scared, terrified really, that the confession will come back on Laurel, will result in further punishment, further violence for his leniency. Frank thinks that if Martin finds out he’s uncuffed Laurel, has essentially been letting her set the terms with no reward required, simply been treating her with what little kindness he can, he’ll go after her, because of his rules, because he thrives on control, because he set bruises sparking up and down her rib cage for her feeble attempt at escape. No, Frank knows enough about Martin to know that he wants to rule this encounter with Laurel, this kidnapping through fear and pain and intimidation, doesn’t want to do anything to make her think there’s even an inch of mercy in store for her if she doesn’t do exactly as she’s asked, if her father refuses to pay the demanded ransom.

No, he’s afraid to point out anything that’s happened between then because he knows it won’t, help Laurel, help him, won’t get any of them out of this disaster any quicker, with any less pain or suffering.

So instead he just nods, tries not to scowl. “Yeah,” he allows, feeling guilty for the lie but knowing he has no choice, not if he wants to protect Laurel, protect himself. “Yeah I guess so.”

“We’ll be ok,” Chris promises him. “’Nother few days and this’ll all be over, we’ll go home and go back to normal.”

Frank nods, jaw clenched against the impulse to point out that nothing, nothing is going to go back to normal for Laurel, no matter the outcome, even if she goes back to her life, her family, nothing will be the same for her, nothing will be normal again. He doesn’t, of course, but he thinks it and the knowledge settles heavy in his bones, unshakeable.

“You ‘n me always make it out,” the other man says, voice low, heavy but a wide grin dancing across his lips. “Always. And this is gonna be no different.”

“I know,” Frank mumbles, throwing a long, guilty glance towards Laurel, still staring at the wall, refusing to acknowledge either of them. “I know.”

“Go get some food, huh,” Chris suggests. “Go to the beach and watch the sunset or something. Being down here’s getting to you.”

He nods dumbly, knows when he’s being told to get lost. “Think I should try out surfing?”

Chris laughs. “Can’t really imagine you surfing, but be sure to take some pictures.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically the one everyone's been expecting for like weeks now, hope it doesn't disappoint :)  
> And if you weren't expecting it (or something like it) then I dunno what fic you've been reading

Like the coward he is, Frank doesn’t push Martin’s rule, just slinks upstairs, falls into bed, exhausted and frayed.

He wakes during the darkest, deepest part of the night, uncertain of whether he’s closer to dusk or to dawn, unsure he’ll even see the sun again, knowing he’s awake now, unable to fall back asleep, something caught in his throat like panic, tight against his chest.

He gets up, pads around the house like a ghost, restless and haunted until he can’t stand to look at the walls anymore, listening desperate and straining for any sound from the basement, any cry of pain, any thumps or knocks, even hoping he can somehow hear the sound of Laurel’s breaths, deep and even, far below him.

He takes the car, finds himself at the same big box store as before, wandering the aisles bleary eyed and lost, content to waste the next four hours until he has to relieve Chris by skulking through the endless store. And then he turns a corner, finds the shelves lined with rows and rows of canned tomatoes, remembers that he promised Laurel Italian, promised to bring her pasta Arrabbiata.

He grabs a cart, loads up on tomatoes and garlic and chili and oregano and boxes of pasta, tries to convince himself he doesn’t need to make meatballs too, buys a couple packs of ground beef anyway, jars of spices and a long baguette, still piping hot from the bakery section.

He’s certain there aren’t any pots or pans at the house, drops an extra $30 on a couple of cheap pots, a pan and a baking sheet along with a couple of Tupperware containers.

Frank retreats back to the house, gives a long, suspicious glance at Martin’s closed door, slips into the kitchen and begins cooking. He creates his mom’s recipe from memory there in the kitchen, adding spices by taste, judging the thickness of the sauce by the way it clings to his spoon, the sides of the pot, the meatballs shaped by feel alone, spiced with not an insignificant amount of guesswork and muscle memory.

He keeps half his mind turned towards the rest of the house, listens for any sign of Martin stirring, any signs of trouble between Laurel and Chris. He has just enough time when he’s done with the sauce to throw the spaghetti in to cook, throw the baguette into the oven with some butter, garlic and cheese before he needs to head back to the basement, go back to Laurel and send Chris topside in his place.

He throws a couple helpings into the Tupperware, heads down to the basement, wonders idly how badly he’s going to get yelled at for leaving dirty pots on the stove, figures he can talk Chris into cleaning up since he’s left a decent helping back in the pots.

Chris is asleep when Frank gets down, slumped in his chair, arms crossed and his chin resting against his chest, breath coming deep and even.

Laurel though, remains awake, eyes hollow and bruised, still staring at the wall, at the same space on the wall, Frank thinks, hasn’t shifted her eyes once. Her skin is pale, the skin around her eyes smudged and bruised and he knows she hasn’t slept since he left, hasn't allowed her guard to drop, wariness and doubt and fear running high through her blood.

“Looks like you had an exciting shift,” Frank quips as Chris startles at the sound of his steps.

“Think I slept most of it,” Chris admits. “Don’t think she even moved once.”

Frank hums, throws another glance at Laurel. “Doesn’t look like it.”

Chris nods towards the plastic containers in each of Frank’s hands. “What’s that?”

“Breakfast,” Frank answers casually, setting the containers down by his stash of food, water bottles and books. “I couldn't sleep, so I cooked instead.”

“There any leftovers?” Chris asks, getting heavily to his feet, yawning.

Frank nods. “Help yourself.”

“Probably will,” Chris says again, running a hand through his hair as he yawns again, wide and bracing. “But I think I’m gonna get back to sleep for a few hours first. Doing nothing is incredibly tiring.”

Frank chuckles obligingly, watching the other man shuffle off, still half asleep up the stairs. Out of habit he waits until the lock glides closed at the top of the stairs, waits until Chris’ footfalls have receded before he takes his eyes away from the staircase, turns to Laurel.

“I brought Italian,” he tells her, trying not to sound like he’s offering up an apology, a white flag attempting to strike at peace. “Freshly made at 4:00 in the morning.”

Laurel’s eyes remain fixed on the wall, ignoring him completely and totally like he’s not even there, like there’s no difference to her between him and Chris, like he’s not something worthy of penetrating her consciousness. Frank can’t even say whether she hears him at all, there’s none of the telltale signs on her face that she’s ignoring him, none of the tiny lines of tension around her eyes, her mouth that would signal she’s straining to keep her face still, to not react to his words. Instead, he thinks, she seems more painting than statue, held frozen and immobile by graceful curves, none of the stiff, sharp tension hidden behind the stone of statues. No, she’s not pretending not to hear him, Frank decides, Laurel’s just retreated so deeply inside herself there’s nothing in her that can hear him, buried herself so deeply that she doesn’t notice him at all.

“Well,” he shrugs, trying not to feel hurt that she’s still mad at him, still giving him the silent treatment, even if that’s just because she refuses to surface from wherever she’s gone when he appears. “Its here if you want it.”

He doesn’t want to go back to those first couple of days that seem like lifetimes ago, when Laurel refused to speak to him, barely acknowledged his existence beyond cutting glares and frigid, haunting silence, but he’s not sure he has a choice. Laurel’s decided that whatever she saw in him was a fluke, a trick of the light, a lie and that he’s not her ally, not someone who can help her. She’s decided he’s as good as her enemy, as good as the men who torture her because he’s complicit in keeping her tied up in this basement, complicit in keeping her at the mercy of those same men who hurt her.

Frank may be worse, he thinks, may be worse because he realizes the things being done to her, sees them and hates them and still allows them to continue, still allows Martin to do as he pleases, enforce his strange, rigid rules and punish her when she doesn't comply. He is her enemy, he thinks, and she’s smart to recognize it, her enemy who disguises himself as her friend.

“You want to be untied, yeah?” he asks, hoping for some reaction, any reaction from her, anything that hints at a softening inside her, hints at her warming towards him again. He knows her well enough now to know that’s not something he’s going to see, not for a long time. It took her nearly two days to speak to him, to thaw enough that words were possible between them and he knows, this time, it will take even longer. Laurel will be punishing herself for letting him in at all, for lowering her walls enough Frank could peak inside, glance at her defenses, will be twice as hesitant now because she knows him, knows he’s not someone who can save her, just a sad, pathetic coward.

He goes to untie her anyway, snips the ziptie connecting her wrists, waiting patiently while Laurel wrings the stiffness out of her shoulders, her arms, gets her sluggish blood moving through her veins without pain like burning fire.

Eventually though, she brings her hands forward, rests them in her lap, still and unmoving, her wrists touching and Frank thinks that’s all the signal he will get from her that he can cuff her hands again. He does, slow and gentle, feeling guilty, always guilty at the things he does to her, the hurt he does, but unable to stop it, unable to stop himself.

“You want legs too?” he asks as he threads a tie between her hands, cinches it tight so only a few inches remain between her wrists.

Laurel remains impassive, eyes fixed on a point somewhere over his head, gives no reaction to his words.

“Alright,” he tells her, scrubbing a hand across his beard so she can’t see his scowl, shrugging as he gets to his feet, approaches her. “I guess I’ll do both.”

He drops into a crouch, knife out, reaches out to grasp her ankle and flicks the knife against the zip tie, slicing through it and freeing her ankle. He tries not to think about the feel of her skin against his fingertips, warm and smooth, as he slices across the second tie. And then he’s tipping backwards, pain cracking across his chest as he lands flat against his back, knife skittering out of his grasp and Laurel’s stepping over him, light and quick and he doesn’t understand what’s happening at first, reaches out on instinct and grasps her ankle, pulls tight and refuses to let go.

She’s kicked him, snapped her foot across his chest, just below his throat, kicked him with all the force she could muster from her sitting position, sent him spilling to the ground. But his hand around her ankle sends her dropping down beside him, tumbling down beside him and he hangs on, even as she falls, hangs on and clings to her, fingers tightening until he’s sure she’ll bruise.

He drags himself towards her, is trying to pin her down, pin her to the ground, keep her from getting to her feet again, getting anywhere near escape when she lashes out, swings her joined fists towards him, connects across his jaw, lights flashing blinding across his eyes, so bright that everything goes hazy even as he hears Laurel’s scream of pain, raw and high and broken.

There’s another blow, painful, but somehow less so, somehow heavy and sluggish as it catches him across his nose. There’s no scream this time, just a tiny whimper slips from her lips, cracked and stuttering, the kind of noise he’s only heard from wounded animals and dying men, the sound of pain that simply can’t be contained, can’t be disguised.

Pain sparks behind his eyes as he braces for another swing, tries to prepare himself for it even as he knows he can’t stop it, everything doubled up, his vision hazy and blurred. He closes his eyes, braces for the blow, fights off the pain and the blurred vision so he can, tries to anticipate her hit.

Instead, Laurel throws her arms around his neck from behind, the zip ties digging harshly into his windpipe as she pulls tight, pulls Frank back against her chest with a strength he has just enough time to marvel at before panic sets in.  
He can breathe, but barely, the ties tight and burning against his throat as Laurel pulls them tighter across his neck, his breath sounding loud and pounding in his ears as it grows shallow and gasping.

On instinct, his hands come up to pull at the ties, trying to slip his fingers between the plastic and his skin, get some distance between them that will allow breath and precious air into his lungs. But the ties are slicing against his skin, no room to pull the plastic away and while he’s kicking back with his legs, hoping to catch Laurel’s ankles, pull them both to the ground, he meets only empty air.

And its then he starts to really panic, a heavy crushing weight settling low in his gut and creeping ever upward, creeping through his veins to settle against his heart. She’s going to kill him, he thinks, or at least that’s her intention, wants to strangle the air from his lungs, leave him limp and broken against the concrete. He was right, he thinks desperately, wants to laugh at it, wants to sob, he was right when he told Chris that the next time she came for one of them, she’d be aiming to kill, aiming to put them down.

He doesn’t know how she’s found the strength for it, doesn’t know how she’s able to pull the ties across his throat tight enough that he can barely slip breath in, even without the broken wrist that he knows will make the tugging, desperate pressure against the limb nearly unbearable. He can’t quite understand what’s happening beyond the shrinking of his vision, beyond the burning in his throat, beyond the growing certainty that he’s going to die, killed by a tiny girl with dangerous eyes, a tiger he mistook for a house cat.

Frank hears her breathing behind him, a kind of desperate, ragged gasp, feels the harsh blade of her breath against his neck, feels the sharp cries of pain that stutter across his skin as she tries to swallow them back, can’t. He knows she’s in pain, can feel it in the tremble of her body against his back, a slow tremor that he can feel grow faster, grow in intensity until he thinks they both shake with it. He knows she’s not going to give up, going to kill him if she can, because she’s using every last ounce of her strength to keep the ties digging into his throat, crushing against his windpipe, nothing left inside her body but pain.

She has every intention of killing him if she can and Frank isn't sure that’s not going to be his fate, unable to see another way this situation ends.

And then he remembers the knife, remembers it sliding across the floor as he went down the first time, wonders how far it is from him, if he can get to it in time. His focus narrows only to that, to getting to the knife, to freeing himself and letting himself breathe again.

With the last strength left to him, Frank surges forward, pulls at the ties as he rocks forward then back, crashing his whole weight against her body, the back of his skull against her forehead, her nose, her chin, somewhere, anywhere soft and delicate, feeling a slow blooming sense of perverse pleasure at getting to head butt her back. They both go tumbling backwards, the force of Frank’s body too much for Laurel, tinier than him by six inches, near a hundred pounds as to make no matter, both go crumpling backwards to the ground, Frank’s body crushing against hers.

Her grip slackens as they falls and Frank slips his fingers between the zip ties and his throat, gets himself free as he ducks under the plastic ties, finally free and his breath coming in short, deep pants, desperate and rushed.  
He skitters back, ties to put as much distance between himself and Laurel as he can, already anticipating the next blow, the next attempt at knocking him out, getting herself free, searching desperately for some sign of the knife, knowing it may be the only way to put and end to this, to ensure he stays alive.

Except the blow never comes, because instead of striking out at him again, instead of landing another hit, Laurel’s rolled onto her side, slow, like slipping out of deep water, knees drawn up against her chest and her arm cradled tight against her body, every part of her curled around her injured arm, trying to protect it, desperate and anguished.

Frank scuttles back away from her until his fingers collide with the wall, head pounding, breath pounding, still expecting another attack, another blow that never comes.

A sob and then another and then another pour from her lips, entire body wracked with them, shaking with the force of them, as tears pour down her cheeks, her face white and waxy, her eyes distant and unseeing with pain as she shakes, trembles like a leaf buffeted by hurricane winds.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, hand passing over his face, fingers coming back bloody from where they probed against his lips. He has all his teeth, Frank knows that much, still spits out a bloody mouthful across the floor, acrid taste of copper still on his tongue from the first blow she landed. “What the fuck?”

He leaves her like that, can’t bring himself to speak to her, to force her to her feet, force her to sit against the chair and get shackled once again. He can’t, even as his jaw, his chest, his throat crackle with pain, with a deep solid aching that makes Frank want to curl into a ball of his own. He thinks he could be angry, should be angry for what she’s done to him, and he is; somewhere in a strange distant part of his mind, he’s practically boiling with rage, and yet, he can’t. Not when Laurel remains curled up on her side, not when her face is tight and stricken with pain, not when its so perfectly, blindingly clear that any punishment Frank could have dolled out for her attempt at escape, at freedom is nothing compared to the pain tearing at her broken wrist. It takes all of the wind out of his sales, sucks him dry of all the anger he could, should feel, makes him feel guilty and pathetic at the remains of his anger, the last uncertain remnants of his fury at her to see Laurel curled into a tiny, crumpled ball, when any pain he would’ve wished on her is only a fraction of what she’s feeling now, is nothing compared to the agony rattling through her, the terrible knives of pain across her arm.

Her nose is bloodied too, dark lines of red, so deep as to be almost black dripping slowly from her nose, dripping across the span of her upper lip, sliding down the curve of her jaw and onto her huddled shoulder where it pools before sliding before sliding to the floor. She makes no move to wipe the blood away, doesn’t even seem to notice that her nose is pouring blood, doesn’t even seem to notice the heavy slide of tears across the bridge of her nose, the jutting angle of her cheekbone. Frank thought he’d feel a kind of perverse pleasure, the strange shooting tendrils of revenge across his heart at getting to head butt her like Laurel had done to him, but there’s nothing there, nothing that could even be said to resemble pleasure, just a heavy formless guilt, a brick weighted around his ankles as he watches her shake, watches her body try to brace itself against the shaking that rises from inside her, her own little private earthquake, shaking with tremors that never become aftershocks, just keep rolling and quaking across her skin.

The shaking subsides long, terrible minutes later, sobs fading into slow, harsh breaths, rasping against her torn throat, her body still tense and braced against the waves of pain breaking against her body.

“Will you be ok?” Frank whispers, finally summoning the courage, the madness from somewhere to speak. “Did you break anything else?”

Laurel doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look up, meet his eyes, just continues to stare, hollowly, at a place on the wall a few feet to his left, body huddled tight around her injured limb, the blood from her nose, no longer flowing but drying, brown and thick, across her lips, her chin, unnoticed and ignored.

He wants to do something, anything to comfort her, take away her pain, but he knows it will make it worse, make the pain a thousand times stronger if he acknowledges it. So instead he says nothing, does nothing, while Laurel’s huddled body shakes and sobs, until her eyes close and her breath goes deep and yet, even so, she continues to tremble, like her body cannot reconcile itself to her pain even in unconsciousness.

When he’s certain she’s asleep, certain she’s not going to wake up, he finds the blanket he brought down the day before, drapes it softly over her shoulders, lets it settle close against her chin, hopes that will be enough, knows it won’t.

He hunts for the knife once he’s sure she’s asleep, finds it settled against the wall, so far away he doesn’t think either of them could have got to it. He’s grateful for that, with a kind of strange, numb distance, grateful that the knife landed so far away there was no chance of Laurel finding it, knowing, dully, that she wouldn’t have hesitated to gut him had she managed to get her hands on it.

Frank tucks it away into his back pocket, wonders at how easily this small, quiet girl would have killed him, wonders if the lack of hesitation is due to it being her first kill, not truly realizing the effect taking a life may have on her, or simply not caring, simply understanding that sometimes death is necessary to protect your own life. He thinks its probably the latter, Laurel’s had a kind of grim, fatalistic certainty about her eventual fate in this basement, certain her father will never pay the ransom, certain that death is the only way she’ll be leaving the basement; either hers or someone else’s.

He thinks she’s trying to face reality head on, confront it with her teeth bared and her hands balled into fists, face it ready to fight. Frank thinks he’d probably be more impressed if that didn’t include fighting, killing him, wishes, distantly and sadly, that she’d just trust him, just believe that he’ll find a way to get her out of here alive, even if it means he’s gotta rob a goddamn bank for the $10 million ransom himself. He wishes a lot of things were different.

He slips into the bathroom, grabs a thick wad of toilet paper and lets a few drops of water fall on it, getting it damp. He checks out his bloody lip in the mirror, just a little split near the corner of his mouth, already starting to itch. He wipes the blood away, a bit more against his mouth, his chin than he was expecting, washes the taste of copper from his tongue as he spits mouthfuls of pink water down the sink until the blood is gone from his mouth.

He wishes he had better than toilet paper for Laurel, wishes he had something soft, something thick like a towel to press against the swollen bloody skin around her nose, wishes there were more moments when Laurel was allowed softness, comfort. But there’s only toilet paper, certainly no hand towels, no tissues, nothing else to use to wipe the quickly drying blood away. There’s nothing like comfort here.

He turns his attention to his neck, regards the two thin lines, barely detectable, across his throat, red and raw and leaking something that never quite becomes blood. He turns his head, regards them in the mirror, wonders how he’s going to disguise them, keep Chris or Martin from noticing.

He can’t think of anything approaching a good excuse for why he has thin red welts across his neck, doesn’t think they’ll fade enough in the next few hours to be anything close to invisible. He’s not sure what options that leaves open to him then, aside from confessing what’s happened or admitting a sudden fondness for autoerotic asphyxiation. Frank half wonders if Martin wouldn’t believe that, files it away for use if anyone decides to question him, wishes he were more of the turtleneck and beanie kind of kidnapper instead of the hide in plain sight variety. When it comes to crime, Frank thinks with a scowl, he’s always chosen wrong.

Frank turns to his book then, tells himself he’s reading but instead watches Laurel, watches the slow rise and fall of her body, the wet, sobbing rasp of her breath as it shakes the huddled mass of blankets, searches for some sign from her that she will be fine, that she hasn’t been broken, totally and completely, that some tiny part of the Laurel that existed that first day on the beach, shining and perfect, still exists somewhere inside her.

She’s asleep, or pretends she is, for hours until Frank worries he may need to say something to Martin, admit what’s happened and figure out what they should do if she’s really, truly hurt, if he somehow broke her beyond repair.

But eventually she stirs, opens her eyes and meets Frank’s stare. She holds his eyes for what seems like an eternity, blue gray and churning with pain but not anger, not accusation, just hopeless, depthless sorrow and sluggish, distant pain.

“I’m sorry,” he confesses in a whisper after moments that seem like hours. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He feels the beginnings of tears pricking at his eyelids, blinks them away before he lets her see, gulps back any of the thousand other things he wants to say to her. He thinks she nods, jaw still stiff with the waves of pain she tries to fight off, pulls the blanket tighter around her body.

“Are you, I dunno,” he pauses, uncertain, helpless and stuttering. “Not ok, but…will you be ok? Or can you? Or…”

Laurel glances towards the sound of his voice, regards him with eyes Frank isn’t sure can even see him, too clouded with pain, with the walls she’s been trying to erect so she doesn’t have to feel at all. “No,” she whispers, her voice cracked. Frank thinks she shakes her head slightly, no more than a twitch, a little tremor before even that movement becomes too much for her, too painful.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m sorry you felt you had to kill me, that you had no other choice.”

She continues to watch him, only her eyes moving and Frank lets her, lets her stare until Laurel finally gives one last shudder, rises to sit, blanket still curled around her shoulders. She scoots back slowly against the wall, sags against it and lets out a long, trembling sigh.

“I’m gonna kill you someday,” she tells him, like a promise, her eyes fixed on him, voice low like a growl. “Because I’m not gonna die down here. I refuse to.”

“You won’t,” he tells her, making his own vow, his own promise. “You’re not gonna die down here, I refuse to let you.”

“You don’t know that,” she hisses, tears sparking behind her eyes. “You can’t save me from what’s gonna happen.”

“I’m gonna try,” he tells her. “Whatever I can do, I’m gonna do it.”

Laurel falls silent again, huddles further against the blankets, only her eyes visible, her eyes and the long, black streaks of dried blood across her face like war paint, slipping sideways now across her nose, her lips, her cheek, terrible bloody gashes across her face.

“D’you, uh, d’you want me to get that blood off?” he asks, gesturing vaguely towards her, towards her bloody nose. “Or uh, let you do it?”

Laurel stares at him for long moments, like she can’t really process his words, is translating them from English into some other language she can understand, slow and meticulous, eventually just shrugs like she’s given up completely, doesn’t even care to know what words he’s spoken.

“It can’t be comfortable,” he continues. “C’mon, let me get it off for you.”

She turns away, eyes darting to the side, showing him the bloody streaks against her cheek.

Frank huffs, sighs and gets to his feet. “You’d seriously rather just let it sit there than wipe it off?”

He heads towards the bathroom, is just slipping in the door when he realizes Laurel is trailing after him like a ghost, blanket whispering against the floor behind her. She sits, heavy and silent against the toilet, blankets still huddled around her shoulders, waiting while Frank snags another wad of paper and wets it.

“You or me?” he asks, offering her the paper.

Laurel lifts her joined hands slowly, takes the wet paper from his fingers gently, careful not to let her skin touch his, like his fingers are radioactive, like she’s an acid and he’s a base, corrosive, corrupting together. She wipes gently at the skin around her nose, above her lip, dislodging the worst of the blood, her injured hand trailing behind her like a limp. She gets most of it, runs her fingers across her cheek to check, scrubs a second time and then lifts her eyes to Frank, like she’s asking for his opinion of her work.

“Not bad,” he tells her with a little nod. “But uh, you missed a spot or two.”

He holds out his hands to her, an offer, a plea. Laurel just stares at him, eyebrows knitted together, mouth hard.

“I can get the rest off. If you want,” he tells her. “Might be easier?”

Her lips twist but eventually she passes over the bundle of paper. Frank wets it again at the sink, turns back around to find Laurel’s body stiff and rigid with tension, with something he concludes isn’t fear but like she’s bracing herself against something, building walls around her skin to keep something, some feeling from slipping inside, getting too close to her heart. Pain, perhaps, or weakness. He wonders if, perhaps, Laurel’s been building a palace of ice around her heart to ensure it doesn’t thaw to him, ensure that it remains hard and numb and closed.

He reaches out, tries to stop the tremble in his own hand, passes the paper gently over the curve of her cheek, against a long streak of red Laurel’s hands missed. He tries, desperately, not to touch her, not to let his skin glide against hers, certain, as Laurel is, that only disaster, only ruin can come from their bodies touching, from the slide of his skin against hers.

It’s a futile gesture of course, Frank can’t avoid touching her for very long, the fingers of his left hand coming up to brush against her chin, fingers pressing lightly against the sharp curve of her jaw as he keeps her head immobile, wipes softly at the stubborn flecks of dried blood. His fingers slide along the ridge of her jaw as he works, walk up along the smooth plane towards her ear, soft and slow, the web of his thumb holding the jut of her chin in place as his fingers brush the shell of her ear.

He shouldn't be doing this, Frank thinks, desperate and wild, feeling reckless, feeling crazed, shouldn't be letting himself touch her like this, slow and gentle and with something that wanders just a little too close to intimacy.

But Laurel’s breath is fanning warm and quick against his skin, warm and quick and with a little catch he tells himself is because of him, can’t be because of him, her pupils suddenly blown wide, big and black and depthless as he lets himself glance up to meet them. Frank’s own heart is pounding in his chest as a sudden heavy weight crushes down on them both, crushes down around them, and Laurel’s tongue is darting out to wet her lips and suddenly that’s the only thing Frank can see, the only thing that matters in the universe, a gentle tug somewhere deep in his chest sending him sliding forward, a millimeter at the time, inevitably, inextricably, like gravity tugging him back towards the earth, that same gravity sending him tumbling towards Laurel.

She stutters forward, haltingly, jarringly, like she’s fighting against the thing that compels her, draws her towards him with the same irresistible force, short sudden jerks forward as Frank continues to glide, smoothly, ever closer.

He doesn’t know what will happen when their bodies meet, knows only that something must, can see in the churning tumult of her eyes that Laurel knows too, knows that something, irrevocable, will happen.

And then the flinch comes, he’s not sure from who, but suddenly instead of inches between them there’s feet, and Frank’s hand hangs down by his side, aching now with something like loss and Laurel refuses to meet his eyes, staring, fixed, at some point over his left shoulder, teeth sunk into her lower lip. The moment is over, shattered, and yet Frank can still feel it hanging over them, still feel the weight of the thing that was surging and burning between them, knows the spark still remains, somewhere, hidden now but not yet extinguished, just waiting for its next moment to fan into a flame.

Frank clears his throat, awkward, guilty because he’s still not sure what would’ve happened if they hadn’t flinched away, still not sure what the outcome would’ve been but certain that it was a moment that shouldn’t’ve happened, a weakness he should never have succumbed to. He scrubs a hand across his beard, trying to lose the tremble from his hand, failing miserably. He forces himself to play the moment off, forget that its happened, forget what he thinks it may have meant, what may have occurred had one of them not seen sense, goes back to his task, goes back to clearing the blood from her face like nothing remains brewing, quick and flashing, between them.

She doesn’t look angry like Frank had half suspected she would, just looks shocked, confused, eyes wide and a little tremble shaking her limbs as she brings her joined hands to her mouth, strokes her fingers against her lips, brows knitted together, the blue grey of her eyes churning with surprise and a hundred other emotions that Frank can’t begin to guess at.

He clears the last stubborn streaks of blood from her face, from across the span of her lip and the gentle swell of her cheek, soft and yet bladed, chips the last flakes from around her puffy and swollen nostrils.

He hurts her, he knows he does, as gentle as he tries to be, hears the sharp inhale of her breath as he scrubs across her ear, the blood that lodged in the shell of her ear.

“I think I got you,” he tells her, voice soft, stepping back, admiring his handiwork. “Go take a look.”

Laurel steps up, trips lightly to her feet as she edges past him in the tiny bathroom, careful not to let her body brush against his, goes to the stand, good hand pressed tight against the sink counter as she peers into the clouded mirror. She studies herself for long moments, turning her cheek this way and that, making sure her skin is scrubbed clean and fresh.

Eventually she turns around, hand catching against the sink, stares back at Frank, unblinking and bracing.

“Good as new,” he tells her, grinning crookedly before he realizes what he’s said, face falling.

She stares back impassively, somehow knowing the guilt that boils, hot and quick, within his blood, knows she doesn’t need to say anything, knowing it's already eating at him without help from her.

“Well,” he mumbles, scrubbing a hand across his beard. “I’m going back to food.”

Again Laurel trails after him back out of the bathroom, wandering after him, lost and haunted, until she slides down the wall and sinks to the floor.

Frank does the same and they sit at opposite sides of the same corner of wall, a few feet away that feel like miles, feel like years, studying each other like enemies trying to learn each other's weaknesses.


	19. Chapter 19

“How bad that wrist hurting you?” he asks as Laurel slides down the wall, a little gasp of pain slipping from her lips.

She shrugs, forces her face into a careful, blank mask, teeth driving deep into her lip, her eyes shuttered and blank.

“You want more aspirin?” he tries, fishing a hand through his collection of books and food and other sundries, trying to remember where he put the bottle. “Or I still have Olaf’s weed.”

There’s a little twitch to the corner of her mouth, a little hitch to her shoulders.

“Yeah?”

She nods again, a little firmer this time, a little more certain, her eyes still dull and clouded with pain.

He fishes in his pocket for the weed, the rolling papers, pulls out the little bag, tries to estimate how much weed Laurel will need to take the edge off, to be able to move without her wrist shrieking in agony. He rolls a thin fragile joint, certain that Laurel will only take a few hits, just enough to mute the worst of her feelings, the thoughts racing through her mind, but not enough to cloud her, muddle her mind so that she can’t see an opportunity for escape, for victory if it comes her way.

He licks at the edges of the rolling paper, secures the joint and offers it out to Laurel, her eyes fixed on his but unseeing and shrouded in pain.

He thinks she shakes herself awake, draws back to the present before nodding, slowly at his offer. Frank fishes the lighter out of his pocket, lights the joint and takes a few experimental drags, letting the smoke settle deep in his chest.

“I’m not so stupid as to hand you over a lighter,” he explains at the little look she gives him, curious and bordering on skeptical.

He gets to his feet, passes over the joint to Laurel and backs away, careful to keep out of reach of the flaming tip.

“Don’t try and burn through the zip ties,” he tells her trying to force a laugh into his throat, failing so that it sounds like a warning, a hidden threat.

Laurel just rolls her eyes as she brings the joint to her lips, taking a slow, dainty puff, lips carefully curling around the paper.  
Her inhales get longer as she continues to smoke, like she hadn't realized how badly she had wanted to give in, give herself over to something that would blunt the sharp edge of her pain, drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs, like it can replace her pain with smoke and dull, distant numbness. Her eyes slip closed and her breath comes slowly, lost in her own little world, savoring the sharp burn in her lungs, savoring the only warmth she’s found in this basement.

Eventually though, she looks up, meets Frank’s eyes and holds the joint out to him, expectantly.

“You done?” he asks, halfway to his feet anyway.

Laurel smiles, something slow and heavy in her grin, like it takes an extra second for her thoughts to become action, to take form, her eyes already cloudy and distant with the pot.

“Feeling better yet?” Frank presses as he rises to his feet, takes the blunt from her outstretched fingertips.

Her smile stretches wider, slow and thick and sweet like honey, her eyes murky and shuttered, eyeteeth glinting in the dim light as Frank takes another few drags, embracing the feeling of floating, slowly, embracing the feeling of distance from the things he doesn’t want to think about, the certainty that there’s something he should be feeling guilty about but not entirely sure what that thing is, certain he doesn’t want to focus on what that thing is.

He takes a few more drags, snuffs out the joint, leaning back against the wall, boneless, watching Laurel watch him through heavy lidded eyes.

“You uh, want any pasta?” he asks finally, scrubbing a hand across his beard, colliding again with his bloody lip, twinge of pain sparking along his mouth as he does. “You’re getting my mom’s recipe, I don’t do that for just anyone.”

He hopes for something from her, some reaction, even if its just to yell at him, threaten him again. But Laurel just remains silent, wary, her face impassive, her expression fixed.

“Oh c’mon,” he urges, forcing himself to grin, wide and crooked, forcing himself to try, just once more, to break through the terrible cloud of pain that still surrounds her, dulled by the pot but still there, still crushing, tries to get her to soften towards him. “Just try it at least. Tell me its disgusting and my mom’s a horrible cook.”

Laurel just scowls, glares at him across the room.

He shrugs, ignores her and rises to his feet, goes and grabs one of the containers of food, cracks it open and begins to dig in. “I know you’re hungry,” he tells her as he spins spaghetti around his fork. “Or you will be, munchies and all. And I know you’re gonna have to eat my cooking at some point. Might as well eat it while its fresh.”

She remains silent, so Frank pretends to ignore her, digs into his food. It’s a little cold now, but not bad, not bad at all, the meatballs perfectly spiced and tender and the sauce just spicy enough to make his lips, his tongue tingle with it, but balanced with the garlic, the tomatoes so that the chilies compliment the rest of the dish.

Frank sees her watching him with interest, sees her eyes light on his face, focused on his mouth like she can’t look away, a hungry, craving look on her face.

“Look,” he tells her with a sigh that he coaxes into a smirk. “Eating my food doesn’t mean you can’t kill me later. In fact, I’d be a little insulted if you didn’t.”

“Don’t fucking patronize me,” she snaps. “I almost had you before. I’ll have you next time.”

“I don’t doubt you will,” Frank agrees honestly. She nearly did have him, nearly strangled the life out of him, stole his breath when she had the zip ties pressed harshly against his windpipe. The only thing that saved him was crashing his head back against her nose, was overwhelming her with pain, with the greater weight of his body, sending them both tumbling backwards. He was probably thirty seconds, a minute from having darkness close around him, from falling unconscious, from death. He knows it and she does too.

He doesn’t doubt she intended to kill him, doesn’t doubt she won’t try it again given half the chance. But Frank spent ten years in juvie, spent enough time being forced to interact, to work with people who wanted to hurt him, other prisoners who were normally his enemies except when faced with the greater, outside threat of the guards, is accustomed to the ever shifting alliances between the other prisoners, the way things can go from hate to friendship and back again in the blink of an eye depending on the whims of outside forces, the benefits of a tentative truce instead of an all out war. No, he doesn’t really hold it against her though he understands she wished for his death. He understands it because he’s seen it a hundred times before, can forgive her because he’s still alive, and that’s always been the one thing that’s mattered to him; surviving.

“But,” he adds. “You’ll have more time for that later. Pretty hard to kill me if you’re starving.”

Laurel scowls, hunches her shoulders and continues to glare.

“You can have it both ways you know,” he tells her, grin crooked, almost teasing. “My death and pasta.”

He finally gets the first tentative sparking of a smile, a little pull at the corner of her mouth, Laurel’s eyes dropping to her hands, embarrassed to be caught thawing towards him. Frank doesn’t mind that he didn’t get more, that he barely got anything that could even hint at a smile because its enough, a step back in the right direction, a tentative stutter towards ending the violence between them.

“Oh c’mon,” he says, prompting as he lets his grin slip wider. “You know I cooked it because of you. Can’t let it go to waste. That’s just rude.”

She glances up, still scowling, but rolls her eyes, a little thrill shooting across Frank’s chest like victory, small and tentative and fragile.

“Liking my cooking doesn’t mean you gotta like me,” he assures her. “And hell, maybe you’ll hate it, have another reason to think I’m a worthless piece of shit.”

Again she gives him another quick roll of her eyes, a soft little scoff, but settles back against the wall, just watches Frank eat, watches him with a hawkish, calculating look in her eyes.

He’s halfway through the pasta, pausing briefly to try the garlic bread when he sees Laurel sigh, begin to rise to her feet.  
“Well, you coming to grab some of this?” he asks around the mouthful of bread.

She nods, nothing more, nothing less, but its enough, its more than enough.

“Alright,” he tells her, reaches over, grabs the second tupperware, a second fork, slides it across the floor to her, coming to a stop a few inches from her right knee. She reaches out with her bound wrists, grasp the contained and pulls it towards her, letting it rest on her knee. “Tell me if I should give up cooking forever.”

She doesn’t respond, just hums slightly as she pulls the lid off the container, takes a slow, tentative bite and then another, quicker and bigger, glancing up at Frank with what he thinks as surprise as she tastes the pasta.

“That’s my special sauce you know,” he tells her. “Secret family recipe with my own little twist.”

She’s in the middle of chewing, pauses long enough to stop, give him a long look, eyebrow raised, skeptical and inquiring.

“Altered it a little for you,” he tells her, grinning slanted and smirking. “Turned my mom’s recipe into arrabbiata. Might keep doing it in the future.”

Laurel hums as she takes another bite, doesn’t give him any further reaction for long, long minutes while he watches her with anticipation, trepidation, wondering why he’s so nervous, so hesitant to see her reaction to his cooking, to the sauce that reminds him of her, unexpected and sharp. She takes a few more bites before her shoulders hitch a little and she lets the blanket slip from her body, pool around her knees. Laurel sets the tupperware beside her, carefully smooths out the blanket around her, scoots to the very edge of it and gives Frank an expectant look, almost prompting.

“You looking to have a picnic?” he asks her, grinning crookedly.

Her smile is tiny but blindingly bright as she gives him a single, quick nod.

Frank huffs out a little laugh, edging into a chuckle. “Sauce was that good huh?”

She shrugs, corners of her mouth tugging outward, trying not to smile, failing, lips pulling into a fierce little grin, halting and hesitant, her shoulders hitching, almost embarrassed to be caught enjoying the food.

“Told you I can get girls with my cooking,” he tells her, laughing as he drops down beside her on the blanket, knocks his shoulder softly into hers, careful to be gentle, soft, careful not to jar her injured arm.

She huffs, a sound that almost becomes a snort, Frank choosing not to mention it, not to risk ending the thaw, the thing that feels like progress between them. He doesn’t delude himself, doesn’t let himself think that Laurel will lay down her burdens, her guard enough to get them back to where they were twenty four hours ago, but Frank tells himself they’re back to making progress, back to taking slow, shaking steps forward after three or four that went backwards.

“Should have brought down some wine,” he smirks. “Could’ve really turned up the charm, completed the seduction.”

Laurel fixes him with a derisive look, eyebrow raised before she turns back to the food, deciding to ignore him rather than acknowledge his words.

“Oh c’mon,” he chuckles, knocking into her again, stomach dropping dangerously as she looks up, grins and bumps her shoulder back into his. “You gotta admit I’m super charming.”

She grins, small and sweet, around her fork, eyes dropping down to her knees, two twin points of color blooming on her pale cheeks.

Frank grins back, can’t help himself, grins wider when Laurel lets her body rest, light and soft against his, elbows knocking gently as they eat, as she thaws enough to let herself near him, thaws enough to no longer keep herself stiff, separate, distant.

“How’s the garlic bread?” he asks her around a mouthful of meatball.

She just hums, grins, refuses to give him more than that, but in her smile Frank thinks he can see all the things she won’t say, all the things she holds inside herself. He’s gotten good at reading her expression, the subtle shifts behind her eyes, learned the language of her silence like a second tongue.

“Shoulda made you desert,” he muses. “Made some tiramisu or something.”

“Cannoli,” Laurel tells him, her voice rough and worn with disuse.

“Yeah?” he asks, grinning, triumphant that he’s gotten her to speak, gotten her to crack the door to him, slide it open half an inch to he can peak inside.

She nods, retreats back into silence again, but its not heavy, not weighty, no longer wrapped tight in anger and accusation.

“I’ll see what I can do tomorrow,” he tells her, nodding shortly. “Bring you some cannoli for breakfast.”

Laurel smiles, thin lipped and tight, before going back to the spaghetti, twirling it neatly, methodically around her fork.

“I could do both though,” he tells her, grinning cockily. “Really try to impress you with my cooking skills.”

She laughs, short and barking, leans even further into his body, his touch. Her hair brushes against his shoulder, the skin of his bicep, dancing with the quick, small movements of her body. Laurel reaches her hands out, strokes her nails along the span of his forearm, not hard enough to hurt but catching gently against his skin. She reaches the thin skin of his wrist, slides her fingers along his palm to tangle her fingers with his, knit their hands together tightly, an apology and a question and an offering contained in her touch, wrapped together so completely Frank thinks it would be impossible to untangle one from the other.

Their tangled hands rest lightly against Frank’s thigh, Laurel’s injured wrist hugging the curve of his knee. It feels right, somehow, their joined hands, feels like finding home in a place he’s never seen before and yet guilt still churns inside him, fresh and heavy because this isn't supposed to be happening, he’s still a monster and he shouldn't be deluding Laurel into thinking the disguise he wears over his face is really him, shouldn't be allowing himself to trick her into seeing him as anything other than the terrible, corrupt creature that’s responsible for her being here, should be putting an end to Laurel feeling anything other than loathing towards him. Its all he deserves and anything else is a lie, plain and simple, anything else is just one more reason he should feel guilty, feel like the monster that he is.

Except he can’t bring himself to tear his hand away, can’t bring himself to shatter the fragile seconds of escape, of peace that have found the two of them hidden away in this basement. He’s selfish and he’s a monster and he’s doing nothing but ruining this girl further, twisting her up and turning her inside out and making her doubt her own mind, her own feelings but he can’t stop, doesn’t have it in him to stop. He’ll take the guilt tearing at his chest, as long as he still gets to feel her fingers laced with his, the guilt eating at him will have been worth it.

“Hey,” he tells her, turning their joined hands over so that his hand rests on top of hers on his leg. “Kinda hard to eat with no hands.”

She hums, smile spreading wide. “You’ve still got a free hand,” she points out, voice soft, threaded through with teasing laughter.

“Yeah, but you don’t,” he tells her, thumb passing across her skin. “And I cooked for you, not for me.”

“You,” she tells him thoughtfully, lifting her hands until only the tips of her fingers brush against Frank’s, until he follows her hands, tightens his fingers around hers, reluctant to let her go. “You’re a masochist, aren't you? Or whatever the opposite of a sadist is, I dunno.”

Frank chuckles, awkward and uncertain. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that.”

She smiles crookedly, thinly. “You want other people to be happy. More than you want to be happy yourself.”

“I, uh,” he starts, falters, just winds up grinning sheepishly, running his free hand through his hair because its true, he does and Laurel can see it, perfectly clearly, like he’d as good as confessed it to her. He hasn't always been that way, spent most of his life concerned only with himself, with his own wants, with chasing the things that brought him and only him pleasure, enjoyment. It wasn't even juvie that changed things in him, that shifted Frank’s focus from himself to others, to the people he cared about, no, he spent much of his time behind bars a selfish, terrible creature. 

It wasn't juvie, it was Chris, Chris who stuck his neck out for Frank when he didn’t have to, who found Frank broken and desperate and protected him, who showed him what loyalty was, putting Frank first, making sure he was safe and as happy as he could be in that terrible place, sneaking him extra food, stepping in and fighting his battles against the older boys who had it out for tiny, terrified Frank, made sure he knew the guards to avoid, the guards that would overlook infractions, made sure he knew the official rules, the unofficial ones too, made sure Frank had the things he needed to survive that place.

It took a while, years if he’s being honest, but he eventually learned the strange transactional currency of juvie, of giving and receiving favors. The people who cared for him would die for him, would sacrifice themselves for him, and Frank soon learned to do the same. Eventually he was able to trust himself, trust Chris enough to be concerned about other people, work for their happiness and not his own, repay Chris’ loyalty with his own, put his own wants, his own needs and desires aside for those of his friends, his brothers in arm. And well, now, now its almost innate, his selflessness, his compulsive need to put the desires of the people he cares about ahead of his own. Frank would do anything for the people he cares about, for the people he thinks he owes, the people he wants to owe.

It doesn’t matter if they repay his loyalty with their own, doesn’t matter if they sacrifice for him in the same way he immolates himself, its not their calculus he’s concerned with but his own internal tally of favors earned and owed, repaid and still outstanding.

And Laurel, well, he owes Laurel, has taken on her burdens the same way Chris took him on when he was young and scared and uncertain. He owes it to her to get her through these next few days, alive and whole and as unscathed as can be. He tased her, knocked her out and its his fault she’s here, wrists bound and convinced of her own death. Laurel’s his and he owes her, would have done anything for her, anything he could, even before he was aware of the strange, powerful connection between them, surging and electric like a current.

“What can I say,” he tells her, joking to hide his embarrassment. “I’m a people pleaser.”

She hums, her smile tentative and secret and slanted. “I bet you are,” she tells him, something wicked behind her words and Frank snorts before he can help himself, snorts about a mouthful of spaghetti that very nearly lodges in his throat.

“Did you just make a joke?” he teases, thumb brushing against hers.

Laurel just shrugs, grin slipping wider, takes her hands from his and goes back to her food, smile still playing around her lips.

“That’s known to happen sometimes.”

“I like it,” he tells her, trying not to smile too wide, let her see just how much he likes it, likes seeing her with something other than a shroud of grief, of sadness clinging to her shoulders like dew, clouding her blue eyes with pain and anger.

She hums, doesn’t say anything more, just ducks her head and retreats to her food. “What’d your friends think of your late night adventures in sauce making?”

Frank shrugs, flashes her a cocky smile. “Well Sven was asleep and Olaf’s just grateful for the food, so can’t say anyone really minded.”

Laurel chuckles quickly, turns away again.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she tells him but her grin suggests otherwise, teasing and so sharp he can see her eyeteeth. “Just uh, you gotta a little something…”

“What?” he asks again, hand going to his mouth, scrubbing at the corner.

“Yeah,” she nods, reaching her hands up to indicate the general area she’s talking about. “A little bit of sauce, right there.”

She reaches out, scrubs her thumb across the corner of his mouth, her face dangerously close to Frank’s again, so close he can feel his breath go shallow, quick as her skin trips over his lip, featherlight and gentle.

She pulls back, blinking hard, smile fleeing from her face, retreating back behind frigid walls and blank expressions.

“You get it?” he asks.

She nods, shields still slipping down in front of her eyes. “I think it was blood actually. You’ve got a little cut right there.”

He nods, shrugs too casually for Laurel to believe that it doesn’t matter, can see it in the downward pull of her mouth, the furrow in her brow. “Yeah, its…its no big deal, doesn't hurt much.”

“Its from where I hit you,” she says, nothing like a question in her voice, sounding somewhere approaching guilty, apologetic even, eyes refusing to meet his.

He nods again. “It is.”

There’s a little frown that cuts across her face, twisting her lips. “Does it hurt?”

“Nah,” he assures her, cracking a grin that tugs sharply at the split skin of his lip, pulling tight and setting pain pricking across his mouth. His tongue probes at the cut, testing it, worrying it, Laurel’s eyes fixing on the gesture, focused on the broken skin at the corner of his mouth. “Just stings a little, nothing to worry about.”

“I shouldn't’ve done that,” she tells him in a whisper. “I’m sorry. You're the only good thing I have.”

“Nah,” he assures her, voice dropping low, gentle. “You’ve got plenty of good things. You do, just gotta see em.”

“I’ve got this food,” she practically growls. “Because of you. I’m untied, because you untied me. I’ve got a blanket, because you brought it down. You’re the only good thing.”

“There’s other things,” he tells her, isn't really sure if he means it.

“No,” Laurel snaps, temperature in the room dropping until goosebumps burst along his arms, up the span of his neck. “There aren’t. So just shut up, ok, and let me enjoy the spaghetti and the blanket and pretend I’m just having a fucking picnic and forget for a moment that my wrist is broken and I can’t leave this basement and in two days I’m probably getting killed. Can you just do that ok?”

“Ok,” Frank nods, swallows thickly, guilty again, guilty always. “Ok, yeah.”

“Thank you,” she breathes, all the anger tumbling from her body, sloughing off like slipping out of her skin.

“I know you don’t wanna think about all that,” he continues. “What might happen tomorrow, the next day, all the things that might go wrong.”

“Damn right, I don’t want to think about it,” she tells him quick and harsh, good hand balling into a fist. “But its all I can think about. Anyone ever told you they were gonna kill you Lars? You able to just shrug that off?”

“No,” he confesses. “I wasn't.”

“You obsess about it until you knew for sure you were safe?” she presses.

He nods, that same old feeling of restless panic rising in his chest, summoned up by memories of the boys he’d run afoul of his first few months after being sentenced; a small easy target for older boys who found him timid and lost and weak, who not just threatened to kill him, had meant it too, had wanted to see Frank break, see him suffer, who were only able to feel when they made someone else suffer, only feel like they had won when someone else lost. And Frank, he’d been easy prey, one of the youngest boys there and missing his mom, his family, missing touch and her cooking and sunlight, and riding his bike down the street after school, missing freedom and still walking around in the fog of conviction that it was all a mistake, that he’d be freed soon, would get to go back home, that he wouldn't have to spent the next decade of his life locked away, still walking around shell shocked that things had gone so catastrophically off the rails and unsure how, when, where, what he could do to save himself.

So when the older boys had come for him, circled around him and towered over him and whispered that they were going to kill him, not then, not yet, but soon, were going to slice his throat and let him bleed out all over the blinding white cinderblock floor, well, Frank had let their words crawl deep into his brain, crawl into the darkest deepest parts there and set up shop, overwhelm the rest of him with terror with the hulking fear that stalked his heels for weeks, months, would probably have followed him until the day when the boys finally grew tired of taunting him, toying with him and had drawn their blades across his throat, the end coming as a relief, finally, after so long waiting for it, so long imagining it. And then Chris had stepped in, protected him, stopped the random beatings, the encounters in the dark hallways where they’d hold razor blades against his throat, hold them there until they nicked, softly at the skin of Frank’s throat, until little bubbles of blood bloomed there, promising that next time would be the time he died, but not yet, not yet, wanting to prolong the terror, the thick choking fear just a little longer.

“Who tried to kill you?” she asks softly, taking his hand again like Laurel can go back in time, protect him from the people who wanted to hurt him, wanted to cause him pain, break him down until he was nothing and only then would they kill him.

“It was a long time ago,” he says, trying to smile, trying to brush it off like it didn’t matter, didn’t hurt then, doesn’t hurt now, doesn’t sometimes wake him up at night, gasping and coated in sweat and thinking he’s still back in those tiny, freezing cells.

“Maybe so,” Laurel says, her smile heartbreaking and tears sparking at the corners of her eyes. For him, he thinks, marveling at the thought, she’s crying for him. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he tells her shaking his head, smiling ruefully. 

“Tell me anyway.”

“When I was little,” he says, still shrugging like if he pretends it doesn’t matter, doesn’t effect him he can make it hurt less, smother down the fear that even now rises across his throat. “I didn’t have a great childhood and there was a gang, I guess, who decided they had it out for me, told me they were gonna kill me. Even then I knew they meant it. But,” he shrugs again, tries to fix her with a cocky, slanted gin, victorious and unconcerned. “They didn’t, obviously, and here I am.”

“Did you ever stop thinking about it?” she asks, thumb passing over his knuckles, smoothing over the ridges of knotted skin, soft and soothing. “When you thought they were going to do it?”

“No,” he confesses. “I never did. Could barely sleep, eat, concentrate on anything else, which just made it worse. I knew it too, but knowing it didn’t matter.”

“Don’t think much helps when you think you're gonna die,” Laurel says, making her own attempts at nonchalance, her own futile efforts to assure him she's fine. “You will still do it though?”

“Do what?”

“Kill me,” she clarifies, her voice flat, low, holding his eyes while all Frank wants to do is flinch away, flinch back. He can feel her hands tighten around his fingers, feel the tension in her skin and all he wants to do is pull away so he can pretend it doesn’t matter, all he wants to do is cling to her and never let go.

“I yeah,” he stutters out, her words catching him off guard, having forced himself to forget about her request, about the terrible task she’s assigned him. “I promised didn’t I?”

“But will you?” Laurel presses, voice going sharp, dangerous.

Frank nods. “I will. If it comes to that, if you still want me to.”

She smiles, crooked and ironic, blinks rapidly like she’s trying not to let herself get upset, get angry or sad or fearful, trying not to feel anything at all. “I will, that’s not going to change. If I have to die, you're the one I want doing it.”

“I have to ask, is that punishment for me or…,” he trails off, uncertain when her eyes go hard, angry. “Or for yourself?”

She pulls her hands away from his, draws them deliberately into her lap, Frank left cold, left bereft by the sudden absence of the warmth of her body, the quick, flashing blood of her skin. “It has nothing to do with you, you selfish egotistical fuck. If there were anyone else to ask, anyone else in the entire damn universe, I’d ask them instead. But you're the only one who I don’t completely hate.”

He nods, hugs his elbows to keep from reaching out, sliding his hand across Laurel’s knee, to keep from reaching out and taking her in his arms. The compulsion grows with every second, a need he can’t sate, a desire that builds and builds until it consumes him, completely. “I get it,” he tells her then. “Needing to set your own terms.”

“No,” she shakes her head in some combination of anger and sadness and regret and frustration, all directed at him, her hand, already balled into a fist tightening until he can see her knuckles go white. “There are no terms. There’s either alive or there’s dead.”

“But what comes before,” he argues. “That matters too. Or you wouldn't care who did killed you.”

“Still,” Laurel insists harshly, though Frank can hear the high, sharp note of sorrow running through her voice, a counterpoint to her hushed words. “There’s no terms. Its…its being able to pretend I matter, pretend there’s someone in the universe who’ll care that I’m dead, who’ll be sorry about it.”

“I’ll care,” Frank admits, feeling like he’s confessing something he ought not to, that he would keep to himself if he was a smarter man, cracking the door to something that exposes him, his weaknesses, his doubts. “That part’s not a lie.”

“It’s not anything until I’m dead,” she corrects with a little hitch of her shoulders, her voice already a sob. “Until then, its just words.”

He sighs, stabs his fork into a meatball viciously, flashes her an ironic grin. “Well then I guess you gotta hope there’s an afterlife, be able to prove me right.”

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, this fic is literally the slowest of slow burns. I'm sorry. It doesn't get any better from here.

Frank can feel Laurel’s stiffen, feel her body curl in on itself, small and protective and wonders, dizzyingly, what he’s done wrong. “I really, really hope not,” she rasps, voice choked with tears now, joined hands rising to scrub furiously at her cheeks.

“Don’t wanna prove me right?” he asks, hopelessly confused, feeling like he has to say something, anything to make this better, to figure out what he’s done wrong, still fighting the hopeless, losing battle against the desire to reach out, run his thumb across her cheekbone, catch the gathering moisture there, to pull her into his arms, run his hands across the span of her back, shield her from whatever it is that is hurting her, whatever things cause her pain. Except Frank knows that its him that hurts her and nothing he does can ease that pain, no comforts he gives her will erase the hurt of the things he’s done to her, will just wind up hurting her more.

“No,” she whispers. “I don’t wanna see any of them. My mom, my brother, my abuela…my father. I don’t wanna have to see them after I’m dead.”

“You don’t think they're gonna miss you…” he begins.

“No,” she says again, shaking her head, eyes fixed on her knees. “I think they will. And I can’t see that, them being sad because of me. I don’t want to hurt my mom anymore.”

He wonders at the girl beside him, marvels at the things inside her that can be more concerned about the pain her death has on others than on herself. He wonders just how long she’s spent trying to shield her mom from anything, any pain and hurt, wonders if this is just another way he’s hurt her, deeply and irrevocably, hurt her because he’s pulled at the fragile string of her mother’s sanity, unraveled the whole, delicate arrangement. 

Frank wants to ask her about her brother too, if she feels the need to protect him too, wants to ask about their relationship, good or bad or distant, wonders if her brother, Adam or Allen or Adrian, protected her when she was small, shielded her from pain and ugliness, from their mother’s troubles, wants to press her on whether she’s now trying to do the same thing, keep her brother from the things that could hurt him.

“It’d be worse than dying, seeing them hurt because of me,” she continues around a sob, and suddenly Frank feels the weight of her body pressing into his, tucking close against his side and her head resting against his shoulder, her dark hair brushing against his neck. Before he can help himself, before he can think through all the reasons why he shouldn’t, all the reasons why he should step away, step back, he’s already wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tugged her closer against his body, tried to surround her with what little comfort he can, knowing it won’t be enough, knowing he’s going to try anyway. “Knowing that its my fault they’re hurting.”

“Its not your fault,” he tells her gently, fingers brushing against the skin of her upper arm, no more than a whisper, taking her bound right hand in his, letting his fingers play over her skin. “It’s mine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she huffs, sniffs angrily against the tears that still slide from her eyes, cling to her lashes. “They’ll still hurt and it’ll still be because of me. And I can’t spend all eternity knowing that.”

“So nothingness is better?” Frank asks over the thick lump of something lodged deep in his throat, the thing tinged sharp like grief. He’s spent plenty of time thinking about death, about oblivion, whether it would be better than a week spent in isolation, a week spent in that strange purgatory between life and death, not really alive at all, whether death would be better than white walls and ceilings and floors and strange voices that echoed through those walls, echoed through the air, through his brain like the voices of some distant, vengeful god. He spent plenty of time thinking about death, whether the nothingness, the oblivion of death would be a relief or just a further form of torture, decided every time that something, anything, even misery, even torture was better than nothing. 

It may make him a coward, may make him a hopeless, naïve optimist, but somehow Frank had always decided to keep going, to see what lay ahead for him in the next minute, the next hour, the next day, see what else there was in store, too curious, too stubborn to bow out before the real ending came for him, dragged him, kicking and screaming, into nothingness instead of embracing it.

But still, Frank understands the temptation, the impulse to give in to oblivion. He’s felt its lure, understands why Laurel would want to embrace it, stop fighting, stop hurting, stop fearing the things that she can’t avoid. He understands, even as he hopes for some other, any other solution.

She nods, soft and slow against the curve of his shoulder. “I think it would be. Just silence, like a tv shutting off.”

“I really don’t want to have to kill you,” he confesses.

He can feel the pull of her small smile against his skin. “I don’t want to have to die. I don’t think either of us have much choice in the matter.”

“I’m sorry.” The words slip out before he can help himself, before he can take them back, the feeling of Laurel’s body against his, soft and warm and sweet too much for his brain, overwhelming him, making him forget the things he should be keeping to himself, the things he shouldn't say. “You don’t deserve any of this. The world deserves to have you in it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she shrugs, affecting unconcern though he can hear the tremble in her voice. “Doesn’t matter what anyone deserves.”

“No,” he agrees. “It doesn’t. But it can still hurt.”

Laurel huffs in agreement. “It can still hurt.”

She’s silent for long, long moments, the only sound the slow cadence of her breathing and Frank half wonders if she’s fallen asleep again. “D’you think my dad got the video?”

“I’d expect so,” he tells her. “Not enough time to send it through the mail.”

Laurel twists her head to look up at him, chin resting against the swell of his bicep. “Where you think he’s gonna send it?” she asks thoughtfully. “D’you think he got my dad’s email? Or he’s gonna send it through the company email, hope it gets to where it needs to go?”

“I dunno,” Frank confesses. “But I’m sure Sven has the info he needs.”

“Who hired you?” she asks, sounding more curious than anything. “D’you have any idea?”

“I don’t,” he tells her. “I’ve no idea.”

Laurel hums thoughtfully. “That’s to protect them, right? The people that hired you. In case you get caught?”

He nods. “Put a couple of layers between me and the folks behind this. Insulate themselves.”

“You're not Mexican,” she murmurs, mouth twisting. “Not even Latino are you?”

“I ain't,” he admits.

“And you don’t work for anyone who is,” she says with certainty, eyes narrowed. “Or you’d have Spanish.”

“How d’you know I don’t?” he counters, unwilling to admit anything to her, anything that could be used to come back on him, be used to figure out who he is, track him down. Laurel can have all the suspicions she wants, but he’s not going to make it easy for her, admit anything to her that he doesn’t have to.

“When you called my dad,” she tells him, shrugging as she burrows further into the crook of his arm, into the shelter of his skin, pressing her cheek against his chest. “None of you knew what he said. I could see it in your faces.”

“What’d he say?”

“That I was his daughter,” she says slowly, her words weighty and fierce, her mouth spreading wide into a sharp, bladed smile. “And that he was proud of me. And that I should kill you all.”

Frank huffs out a quick laugh, unable to stop. “Good damn thing none of us knew that’s what he said.”

“I think he was testing you,” she offers. “Same as you were testing him. That’s what that first conversation was about, wasn't it? Trying to get a sense of my him.”

“I dunno what Sven’s intention was,” Frank tells her, careful not to say too much, confess too much about the strained, fractured relationship between himself and Martin.

Laurel hums against his chest. “Get a bead on my dad,” she says firmly. “That was his intention. Size him up.”

“Maybe so,” Frank agrees, certain its true, certain there was no other reason for that first conversation except to gain an understanding of Jorge Castillo, gain an understanding of his daughter, how the two of them would react to adversity, to Martin’s demands.

“Maybe so,” she echoes. “But if you don’t speak Spanish, weren’t hired by the people down in Mexico, you were hired someone here, someone close to him.”

“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t hired by someone down there,” he points out. “Not all us gringos have only English.”

She laughs. “Even so, plenty of us Mexicans wind up having at least working English. Still,” Laurel muses, one side of her mouth twisting into a scowl. “I don’t think it was someone from back there.”

“Nah?”

“No,” she says again. “Doesn’t feel like a Mexican kidnapping.”

“What’s the difference?” he asks, tightening his arm around her shoulder, content to have her talking, content to listen to her, the cadence of her voice, slow and rough, wrapping around him.

“Its about sending a message, not about getting paid. Money’s a bonus, but its not the aim.”

“Seems like money’s always the aim,” Frank tells her.

“No,” she answers slowly, her body pulling forward, sitting up and away from his grasp, separating herself and resting her hooked elbows on her knees. “Fear’s the aim.”

“Fear’s not the aim here?” he asks.

Laurel shakes her head, rubs at the little scab over her eyebrow from where he clocked her that first day on the trail, pink around the edges and healing. “No,” she tells him, lips curling. “I don’t think it is. I think its about something more, humiliating my dad, breaking him. Not so much a message as a statement, a declaration.”

“Maybe so,” he agrees halfheartedly. He doesn’t know what the purpose is in all this, can’t begin to guess at the intentions of the men who hired him, knows that he’s just a hired gun, knows that its not his place to understand. All he knows is that this is not a typical kidnapping, not simple or standard or obvious. Its not his place to understand.

“You’ll see,” she tells him, drawing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, going small, huddled, resting her chin there on her knees. “When all this is over, you’ll be able to see it.”

“I don’t care about seeing it,” he says, hooking a finger through the loop of the zip ties holding her hands together, tugging gently, not near hard enough to hurt her. “I just want it to be over.”

“Yeah,” Laurel agrees, nodding as a small grin works its way, tentatively, across her lips. “Me too.”

“Still,” he tells her, knocking his shoulder into hers. “Company’s good, wouldn't you say?”

She snorts, rolls her eyes. “Food’s not half bad either.”

“You're full of compliments today,” he teases, hooking his arm through hers, tugging her body close.

“Gotta get them in while I can,” she laughs, tinged with bitter irony. “Tell your mom she’s did good with you.”

“Yeah?” he grins, teasing.

Laurel nods, reaches out and grabs at the container of pasta, twirls her fork around idly. “For sure. For late night cooking, this is pretty damn good.”

“Would it have gotten me a second date?” he asks, their faces suddenly close, only inches apart, Laurel’s forehead presses softly against his or his against hers or something, he’s not sure what, not sure if it was her who moved or him or both of them or neither. All Frank knows is that he’s suddenly swimming in the deep blue of her eyes, too close, drowning in her, the sight, scent, feel of Laurel.

“Yeah,” she breathes, so close, so soft he can feel the brush of her words against his cheek. “Probably would. If I didn’t know what an asshole you were.”

“I’m not an asshole,” Frank tells her, lips only barely catching over the lie.

“You are,” she insists, fingers smoothing over the soft skin just below his elbow. “You are, but that doesn’t stop you.”

“Does it stop you?”

“No,” Laurel tells him, grin spreading across her face even as she pulls back again, leaves him separate and alone and cold, even as something, maybe not him, but something, stops her, stops her in her tracks, prevents her from moving forward down the strange, uncertain path laid out for them, the strange dangerous thing still moving within them, around them, through them.

“Leave your number,” he tells her, flashing a dangerous grin, his breath catching with doubts, with uncertainty. “When we send you back to your mansion. Eighteen months and I’ll give you a call, see if you really mean it.”

“Or I’ll just use it to turn you in,” she points out, eyebrows raising wickedly.

“You could do that too,” Frank agrees. “Guess I’ll just have to trust you won’t.”

“You should never trust me,” she warns him.

“No one should trust anyone,” he counters. “That’s why its like faith.”

“Don’t got any of that either.”

“Yeah you do,” Frank tells her. “You got plenty of faith. Maybe not in god, but in yourself.”

Laurel grins, small and uncertain, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, a high sharp sound like a giggle catching in her throat. “My aunt, she’s a nun. Always said I was a wicked blasphemer.”

“Better than my uncle the priest,” Frank offers. “He once told me I had so much evil in me the devil would send me back.”

Laurel laughs, kicks her legs out and tips backward to lie, flat, against the floor, her bound arms against her chest. “Knew you were a good Catholic boy,” she grins, looking pleased, looking smug that she’s discovered some tiny sliver of information about him, some small nugget of truth.

“I’m not sure ‘good’s’ the proper adjective,” he chuckles, momentarily worried that she’s learned something true about him, something real, some sliver of information that could be used to trace him, track him down and punish him for what he’s done. And then Frank rejects the thought, certain that merely admitting he’s Catholic is hardly enough to use to learn who he is. “But yeah, I got raised Catholic.”

“And now we’re a couple of wicked sinners,” she grins crookedly, turning her head to glance up at Frank. 

There's something prompting, inviting in her gaze and Frank slips to the ground beside her, lays out on his back, feet straight out beside hers, almost close enough to touch, almost but not quite, still scared of the thing that arcs between them, the thing like fire and madness. “I’ve been called worse.”

“So’ve I,” she tells him softly, but close enough that her words sound like drums in his ear, turning her head towards him just as Frank shifts closer to her and suddenly there’s millimeters between them, Laurel’s eyes large and deep and he’s drowning in them. “But none of those thing’ve been true.”

“And this is?”

“Yes,” she agrees. “It is.”

“Those nuns at your school know you’re such a faithless transgressor?” he teases as Laurel hitches her bound arms up close against her chin, the zip ties pressing against her collarbone and Frank wonders for a long minute whether she’s seeking what he felt when she had the ties across his windpipe. But then he sees her roll her shoulders slightly, realizes its simply a matter of comfort, simply a matter of her range of motion being severely limited by the ties around her arms, the sore, burning muscles that lead her to a position for her arms.

“They have their suspicions,” she tells him in a slow rush of breath, teeth spreading wide and sharp around her smile.

“Yeah? And what are those suspicions?” he asks her, smile wicked, as that disorienting feeling of vertigo cuts across his heart, the feeling that he’s falling, deeply, not towards some painful, final impact, some inevitable brush with the ground, but like he’ll be falling forever, like gravity has been removed from the world and falling is just floating, just hovering in place.

Laurel hums. “That I’m a chronic mass skipper, an idolator and that I take way too much pleasure in the sins of the flesh.”

“Is it true?”

She laughs again, light and sweet as her toes collide with his calf, as Laurel just lets her foot tangle with his. “Its true,” she confirms.

“Well, all the best people do,” he laughs, though he can hear the stutter running across his laugh as her feet slide further across the skin of his leg.

“So I’ve been told,” she says, drumming the fingers of her right hand slowly against her collarbone, suddenly thoughtful. “Its funny though, they don’t have any problem with my dad and his sins. They just like his money.”

“Greedy sinners the lot of them,” Frank murmurs with a grin. “I once caught Father Patrick with his hands up Anthony Petruzzelli’s mom’s skirt.”

Laurel twists, rolls over onto her side, hand still tucked up along her collarbone, a wry grin across her face. “Yeah?”

He nods. “I was eight or nine, maybe. He saw me of course, Father Pat, told me to keep my fucking mouth shut because I was wicked and was going to straight to hell for having seen.”

“Did you?”

He shrugs, bitterness twisting through him at the memory, still, for the way those ten seconds had shattered his faith, his childlike belief, may have even set him down the path that found him here, today, sprawled out on a concrete basement floor with a girl who can’t leave, who’s eyes are just a little too sharp, that he watches a little too closely, drawn to her like a puppet on a string. “Yeah. Too much trouble to say anything. But I realized what bullshit it all was, religion. I was a sinner for having seen, a sinner for lying about seeing, saying I hadn’t. If I was a sinner, might as well embrace it though, yeah?”

He turns his head towards her, watches her reaction to his words. She’s frowning, a little crease knitting between her brows.

“That’s one perspective,” she says carefully, though he can tell by the sudden stiffness in her body that she’s disliked something about his words.

“What’s another?” he presses, turning onto his side so he can see the emotions rolling behind her eyes.

Her shoulders hitch and she chews softly at her lower lip until its red and raw. “Make your own idea of sin.”

“Pretty sure my own idea of sin would be fairly limited,” he confesses, tries to play it off as a joke.

“Maybe,” she agrees. “But you don’t seem too happy with nihilism.”

“Don’t tell me what makes me happy,” he tells her sharply. Frank couldn't say why her words make him snap at her, what it is about them that catch him like a sucker punch across the jaw, but all he knows is that they hurt, that he’s lashing out, that she’s striking a little too close to the places where his armor is weakest, where his own doubts, about religion and life and his choices and this crime, all scream loudest in his ears.

Laurel’s eyes widen slightly, jaw tight and she rolls, slowly, onto her back, away from him, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Alright.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her quickly, because he knows he was too defensive, too quick to react.

“Its fine,” Laurel tells him stiffly, but still stares blankly at the ceiling.

He reaches out, covers her hands with his, big enough he can nearly swallow both of them within his. “I know its wrong, you know I know that. But that doesn’t change anything.”

She sighs, broken and soft. “Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. If it’s the only thing that might keep me alive.”

“I can’t change anything Laurel,” he confesses. “You know I can’t. Its up to your dad, whether or not he pays.”

“And he won’t,” she murmurs, though she allows herself to twine her fingers through his, curl around his hand.

“You can’t think like that,” Frank tells her.

Slowly, like the trickle of water down glass, Laurel pulls her hands away from him, curls them against her chest and turns away from him, turns to her side, putting her back to him. 

“You can’t,” he says again, even though he knows that he’s making things worse, creating an even wider gulf between them, so much distance separating them he’s not sure he can even see the other side, destroying what little trust Laurel has in him, the still tentative understanding between them. “And you can’t keep trying to play me.”

“I can do whatever it takes.”

“Laurel,” he says softly, wanting to reach out brush the hair back from across her face, tuck it behind her ear, fingers lingering along the swell of her cheek. His throat tightens until its nearly closed, fingers trembling with something like fear, as he stumbles forward into the questions that have gone unasked for far too long. “Is that what this is? Doing whatever it takes to get me on your side?”

She turns again, mouth tight, almost a sneer as she faces him. “No,” she tells him simply, the words heavy and weighty between them, settling like a stone against Frank’s chest.

He goes to say something, what he’s not sure, some apology or some explanation but Laurel cuts him off, voice harsh and rasping.

“It would be easy if that was all this is, whatever it is,” she says, her words low and bitter. “But its not.”

“I’m sorry,” he confesses, marveling at how they both refuse to put into words the thing that surges between them, hot and dangerous and irresistible. They can’t speak about it, can’t even really acknowledge it, can’t look at the blindingly bright supernova that consumes them both with heat and fire and the long, slow pull of gravity, but its there, hooks sunk deep into both their chests, pounding through their blood. “I never meant for this to happen.”

“I know,” she says, soft, sad. “You’ve tried to resist it too. I can see it.”

“I have,” he nods, words tumbling out of him, powerless to stand against her, always powerless against Laurel, even from the start. “But I can’t.”

She nods, eyes swimming with tears, spilling from her lashes and tumbling down her cheeks. “I want to, I want to so badly. But I can’t.”

Frank’s crying too, sucking in long, gasping breaths, his cheeks wet with the slide of tears, whispering against the quick, hot fan of her breath, apologies and confessions.

“I wish you’d just killed me,” she tells him. “There on the trail. I wish I never knew you.”

“I wish I’d said no to this job,” he agrees as her thumb slips across his cheek. “You and me, we never should’ve met.”

Laurel nods because its true and they both know it. The two of them never should have met, tragedy baked into their bones, like fate, like certainty, disaster drawing them closer and closer, the two of them circling each other within the whirlpool that’s going to drown them, suck them under. They can’t resist each other, but its not the draw of magnets colliding, not gravity sending them tumbling closer, no, its to bodies circling ever closer within the sucking rapids, spiraling ever closer but never meeting until the moment they’re both pulled under, drowned. Its catastrophe between them, plain and simple, and yet Frank finds himself giving over to the tide, giving up, giving in, unable to keep himself from the feelings, new and fragile and terrifying, that well up in him, overflowing his heart. 

He’s tried and she’s tried and they’ve been failing since the moment they met, since the instant they passed each other along the trail, been trying to hold themselves apart, separate, trying shield themselves from things pumping through their veins, trying not to feel everything that floods them with every breath, every beat of their hearts. But they can’t, that much is clear. They’ve gone from war to truce to peace to something more, something deeper, something that erases borders and boundaries and trenches and no man’s lands, that just leaves the two of them, their two bodies and the things that grow, ever larger, ever stronger, between them.

They’re flame and gunpowder, atoms fusing into one, howling wind and lashing rain; they’re disaster and destiny and they never should have met, he knows that now, but knows too there’s no going back, no erasing what’s been uncovered. And there's no stopping the slow creep of time, no stopping the deadline bearing down on them, the terrible things in store for Laurel, the terrible things Frank must do if her father doesn't pay, doesn’t give into the demands that have been made of him as part of this brutal crime. If something doesn’t happen, if something doesn’t stop the impending deadline, Laurel is going to die and Frank is going to be the one to kill her. Unless her father pays, unless they find some other solution, some other way to save Laurel when the clock ticks down to zero, the thing between them will be snuffed out, buried before its given breath before either of them know, truly, what it is that builds like an inferno between them, extinguished, cut away like cutting away a limb they only just realized they possessed, the loss deep and brutal and unrecoverable. Frank doesn’t know what will happen if they can’t find a way out, a way for them both to make it free of this basement, but he knows neither of them will survive it if they don’t, knows it as sure as he knows his own breath, the beat of his own heart.


	21. Chapter 21

The two of them lie like that, for hours, curled towards each other, knees hugging tight against their bodies, not touching, Frank just breathing in Laurel, the scent of her, the slow cadence of her breath, staring into her eyes, the slow, heavy blinks, drowning in the blue grey of her pupils. Eventually he reaches out, hand slipping into the space between their bodies, fingers outstretched in offering. Laurel takes his hand in hers, bridging the space between them, fingers joined in the long inches of space separating their bodies, hands clasped tight. He doesn’t know if they sleep, all he knows is the blue of her eyes, the soft press of her fingers, the thick, heavy silence of loss, of the anticipation of grief.

“Hey,” he says eventually, voice thick with disuse and rasping like sandpaper. “Olaf will be down soon. You ought to get up.”

Laurel blinks slowly, draws her hands back against her body, curling against her chest as she nods. “Alright.”

She rises gingerly into a sitting position, wincing as her injured wrist is jarred as she moves. There’s a heaviness to her breath as she slumps against the wall, skin suddenly looking pale and waxy in the dim light.

“You ok?” he asks as she draws her knees up against her chest, letting her chin rest on her legs.

Laurel nods. “I’m fine,” she assures him but there’s something breathy, something strained in her voice.

“You need anything before you go back in the chair?” he asks, rising into a sitting position and then getting to his feet. “You gotta little spaghetti left over.”

Laurel grins, shy and crooked.

He flashes her a quick smile, hands over the tupperware. “Lemme get your feet though,” he tells her. “While you’re eating.”

She scowls, gives him a reluctant sigh but stands and makes her way over to the chair.

“Don’t try anything,” he warns her as she drops into the chair. “Please.”

She scoffs, eyes rolling, but Frank is still cautious as he drops to his knees, secures one ankle and then the other. He’s tightening the zip tie around her right ankle when she twitches, jerks a little bit and Frank trips backwards, hands flat against the concrete as he scrambles away from her, out of the reach of her kick.

He’s made it back a good five or six feet, breath pounding in his ears when he realizes Laurel’s still sitting in the chair, hasn’t moved at all, hasn't come after him.

“Gotcha,” she says, wicked grin slipping across her face and laughter rippling across her words.

“Really?” he asks, eyebrows raised as his heart stills.

Laurel shrugs, still grinning at him. “You gotta admit you deserved it.”

“I did,” he admits, his own smile tentative but growing wider.

She holds the tupperware container in the crook of her elbow, twirls spaghetti around her fork, eyes still sharp like knives, just continues to grin like she’s won something.

“God,” he tells her wistfully. “I’d like to have met you some other way.” He means it, desperately, hopelessly, wishes he could have met her some other time, some other place, met her organically, run into her in some bar, or coffee shop or on the bus or anywhere, anywhere else, wishes he could know her when she’s not racked with pain, with fear and anger. He hopes they would’ve liked each other in that other, more innocent world, thinks they would’ve, thinks that the things tying them together would exist in any, every universe, would send their orbits careening into each other, setting their paths moving in tandem. He thinks whatever universe they met in, they’d be bound together, thrown together by something like fate, something strong and true, some strange force that can’t bear to keep them apart, that’s powerless to keep them apart.

Laurel pauses, fork halfway to her mouth, sets it carefully down, her eyes never leaving his. “I think that would’ve been nice,” she says, still careful, still searching for the perfect words.

“Maybe you’ll get outta here, go off to college somewhere up north, run into me in some shitty dive bar five years from now, or just walking down the street cause you missed the bus.”

Laurel hums, her smile fleeing from his face and her eyes dropping to her knees. “Maybe,” she agrees halfheartedly.

“No?” he asks, face falling.

“I think the odds of that are pretty slim,” Laurel says carefully, eyes still fixed on her hands folded in her lap.

“Doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” he points out.

“I think that’s exactly what it’ll mean,” she tells him, still pointed, still clipped and deliberate like she’s selecting her words with intense caution. “I think its pretty unlikely I’m getting out of here.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Frank tells her then, crooked grin flashing because otherwise he’s not going to be able to speak, because otherwise his grief and doubts will overwhelm him. “You get outta here and I’ll give you a way to find me again. Nothing you can use to turn me in, but something that’ll lead back to me. If you want it.”

Her teeth sink into her lower lip. “If I get out of here, you can give me whatever you want,” she tells him, suddenly reserved, suddenly a thousand miles of distance between them. “But if I ever see you again, I’m going to kill you.”

“You still wanna do that?” Frank asks, somehow not shocked at all by her words, not the least bit surprised, just sad, sad that because of circumstance and fate and Frank’s own stupid cowardice they’ve blown whatever shot the two of them had, whatever small, uncertain chance they were given, doomed the two of them before they even knew what they had.

“I do,” she confesses with a nod, meeting his eyes and refusing to look away, refusing to back down, temper her words. “I’m never going to stop wanting to.”

Frank runs a hand through his beard, grins ruefully because there’s nothing else for him to do, no other way for him to feel.

Of course she should want him dead; for the terrible things he’s done, for the pain he’s caused her, there’s no other way for Laurel to feel. It doesn’t matter what else there is, what strange, uncertain emotions linger between them, could maybe have had a shot in some other universe because in this life, in this reality, she can’t ever feel anything but hate towards him, can’t let any other emotion rule how she feels. He’s hurt her so completely, damaged her so deeply that anything else would be a lie, would be an insult to Laurel herself, to whatever person she becomes after this horrible kidnapping is over, after she picks up the pieces of what remains of her and fits them back together, crooked and chipped and turns herself into some strange new creature, tempered by fire and steel.

“Maybe in another life,” she continues with a little shrug, too casual, too studiously neutral, her face blank and vacant. “Maybe in some world where we did meet on the bus. But here, this is all you and me can ever be.”

“Enemies you mean,” he clarifies, needing to put it into words, to hear Laurel say those words, make it clear what they are, all they can ever be.

“No,” she says, a little catch in her words at the shake of her head. “Not enemies. I don’t hate you. But I can’t…I can’t lo…like you either. Not after this.”

“I get it,” he tells her, and he does, even though it hurts, stabs painful claws across his heart, his throat, sharp and burning at his skin. “It hurts, but I get it. And I’m sorry. About all this.”

“Yeah,” Laurel agrees with a little laugh, edged and ironic. “Me too.”

“Well,” Frank says as she stabs through the last of the meatballs, catches the last of the sauce. “Gimme that and I’ll go wash it out and I’ll give you an extra thirty seconds with your hands free.”

Laurel looks half surprised, but holds her arms out, tupperware still held between her elbow and her body while Frank cuts the tie between her wrists. She hands him the container, already beginning to roll her shoulders, her elbows, wringing the tension, the painful cramping from her immobile muscles.

He keeps half an eye on her as he rinses out the container, makes sure she’s not doing anything to try and free her legs, do anything that will come back on him in the form of a zip tie across his windpipe, but she’s largely still, the only movement the slow roll of her arms, working out the pain, regaining her range of motion.

“Alright,” he says when he gets back. “Arms behind your back.”

Laurel complies silently, obediently, only a tiny scowl twisting her lips. “So one thing I’ve discovered thanks to you assholes is that I’m really not into bondage.”

Frank laughs, sharp and barking, as he secures her wrists through the slats of the chair. “Can’t say that for certain,” he tells her with a smirk he tries to hide. “You might like being the one that does the tying.”

She snorts and even from behind Frank can tell she rolls her eyes. “I think I could get behind that idea.”

“See,” he says, still smirking, pulling the zip tie tight. “Plenty of kinks left for you to discover.”

“Oh yeah,” she murmurs, still fixing him with a derisive look. “That’s what this whole thing’s been about, uncovering my kinks.”

“Gotta take the victories you can,” he quips, settling back against the blanket, his back against the concrete wall. “Keep a positive outlook or whatever.”

“Even if I was into tying people up,” she tells him icily, though he can see the lingering remains of her grin spread across her lips. “Which I’m not, I don’t think discovering it a day before I’m killed is much use to anyone.”

“Never know,” he offers with a smirk. “Sven might be into that.”

“You’re good at that you know,” she tells him suddenly, eyes cunning and sharp, pinning him in place with their intensity.

“Disassociating, or, no, that’s not right. You’re good at keeping things separate. You’re never even tempted to say their real names, Sven and Olaf. Its like, down here, that’s who they become to you.”

He shrugs, scrubs a hand across his beard sheepishly. He’s had his whole life, or near enough, to learn to keep things separated, to not let thoughts of his family, his life back in Philly intrude into the day to day boredom of juvie, not to let the terrible things that were done to him show on his face, behind his eyes the next day, never allow anyone to see that he was hurting even when his entire body screamed with it. He learned too, not to say certain names, not to confess to certain things that would come back on his friends or that would find him punished for ratting later. Its not something he’ll confess to this girl, but he’s spent plenty of time knowing exactly what things he can say, can allow himself to think about, and which ones must remain locked tight behind his mind. “This isn't my first rodeo, you know. I do what I gotta do not to get caught.”

Her shoulders hitch slightly. “Even so, its impressive. Your friend, Olaf, he’s not as good.”

Frank looks up sharply, fear suddenly running hot and fast through his veins, his heart beating double time in his chest.

“Oh relax,” she tells him with a little scoff. “He hasn't said shit. But some of the time, when he’s bored, he’ll talk, to himself mostly. And he’ll stop in the middle of a sentence and I can tell its because he almost said something, your name or mentioned where you live, something.”

“Why're you telling me this?” Frank asks, feeling like he’s been dropped into a conversation in another language, unsure of the context, unsure of what, exactly, they’re speaking about and why.

Her shoulders hitch again, but her eyes skitter away from him, sink to her knees, unwilling to let him see whatever rages through them, sorrow or fear or nothing at all. “Its not gonna do me any good now,” she tells him. “Its pretty clear I’m not getting out of here still breathing.”

“Y’know,” he says fixing her with a long, mocking glance. “If really hope you make it outta here, if only so you can eat those words.”

She glares but there's little force behind it. “Yeah,” she says finally, softening enough she cracks a smile. “That’d be nice.”

“Still time for it,” he points out. “Bet your old man’s just getting the cash together. Hitting up every ATM on South Beach.”

Laurel rolls her eyes, scoffs though her smile doesn’t fade, doesn’t dim from across her lips. “South Beach is Miami.”

He shrugs, smirks, pleased that he’s got her talking, got her thinking about something other than her impending death, the fact that her father may very well not be doing anything to save her, the deadline getting closer with every moment. “Getting to 10 mil from ATM withdrawals would probably take him all the way down to Miami, so just go with it.”

“Alright,” she snorts again, glancing away from him. “But your metaphors or similes or whatever are fucking terrible.”

Frank goes to say something snide, lips already curling into a slanted grin, but there’s a shuffle at the top of the stairs, the sound of the lock scraping as someone pulls it open and begins to slip down to the basement.

“Goddamnit,” Laurel murmurs, head lolling against the chair back, eyes slipping closed as she sighs, heavy and exhausted.

“Shoulda offered you more weed,” he murmurs, trying to force a chuckle, trying to ignore the way Laurel’s started trembling, her whole body shaking softly like the basements suddenly dropped 20 degrees, like fear shakes her through to her core. “Take the edge off your evening with Olaf.”

She gives him the tentative beginnings of a smile, a slight pull to the edges of her mouth, like she’s trying to reassure him but when she looks up, meets his eyes her gaze is cloudy and churning with pain. 

And then Frank hears it, the shuffle of two pairs of feet against the wooden stairs and his stomach lurches with apprehension, with roiling fear. Martin, the only reason for his appearance something bad, Frank knows, something that will likely hurt Laurel.

“Hey,” Frank calls out as they come into view. “What's good?”

“Gonna make another phone call,” Chris says as he comes into view, giving Frank a little shrug, scowl looking like a permanent addition to his face. “See where we’re at with Castillo.”

Frank’s eyes track to Martin, coming down the last step and circling Laurel like he’s preparing to attack. He must sense Frank’s gaze because the other man looks up, eyes fixing on Frank’s. He nods, heavy and stiff. “He may need reminding that time is of the essence.”

He watches Laurel out of the corner of his eye, careful not to let anyone notice the direction of his gaze, not to let them sense the concern he has for her, the attention she draws from him, careful too to ensure that she’s not any worse than she was, that she’s keeping it together, hiding her pain and fear as best she can. He can’t look away from her, his entire mind focused on her like there’s nothing else in the world that matters, and maybe, Frank thinks, that’s true, that there’s nothing else of concern to him in the world, just Laurel. He’s pulled to her, always, with a laser focus, even when his eyes are on Martin, his attention is fixed on Laurel, always there in the back of his mind he’s aware of her, her movements, the slight shifts in her face, always careful, watchful. She is the port and he is a ship, returning always to her, seeking shelter, seeking comfort.

“Still giving him tomorrow night as the deadline?” Frank asks, voice stiff with tension.

Martin glances at him sharply, lips pursed. “Yes.”

“You talk to him since that first call?” he grits out.

Martin nods again. “Yes.”

“And?”

Martin’s jaw goes tight, tense, like it hurts him to give Frank a more detailed answer, give up any further information about the workings of this doomed kidnapping and extortion. “No further progress,” he tells Frank stiffly. “You would have been informed otherwise.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, not particularly convinced of the truth of that. “Definitely.”

Martin throws him a long, searching look, slips his phone out of his pocket. He turns to Laurel then, malice in his gaze. “You remember the rules?”

Her eyes narrow but she nods, jaw tight.

Martin smiles thinly. “Perfect. Please remain quiet unless I have further need of you.”

He dials out, puts the phone on speaker so that the rings blare heavy and sharp through the basement. They sound four, five times, long enough that Frank becomes convinced Jorge Castillo’s voicemail is going to pick up, wants to laugh at the absurdity of the idea that Martin will have to leave a message laying out his demands, his requirements for the release of Jorge’s kidnapped daughter. He wants to cry too, knowing that Laurel’s father didn’t care enough to take the call, care enough about her, about getting her back, getting her home.

Eventually though there's a voice on the other end of the line, the sound of a throat clearing, nervous and tentative.

Frank throws Chris a look, heavy and knowing. It is the sound of a man being listened to, the sound of a man with half a dozen cops surrounding him, trying to take in last minute instructions, trying to remember the things he has to say, the time he needs to keep on the line, trying not to forget, in all that, in everything, that his daughter’s life depends on the call, on the outcome.

“Hello?”

“Good afternoon Mr. Castillo,” Martin replies smoothly, a small, pleased smile working its way onto his face. “I hope you received the video we made for you. Your daughter put all of her energy into it.’

“I…,” the voice on the other end of the line is strangled with anger before he smooths it over, swallows it down. Probably, Frank thinks, urged into calm by the other men listening to the call. “Yes, I got it.”

“Perfect,” Martin tells him. “Now, I’m going to hang up. I’ll call back in two minutes. When I do, I need you to have lost the audience, you understand? I want to hear that you're outside, where I can’t be traced. I think this is a conversation you and I should have alone.”

There’s a long, long moment of silence, hanging heavy and choking over the basement.

“Jorge,” Martin snaps. “You understand?”

“Yes,” the answer finally comes, rushed and breathless. “Yes.”

“Good,” he says. “Two minutes.”

Martin snaps the phone closed, glares at Laurel, face darkening with rage. He puts his hands in his pockets, sighs before speaking. “I should really just kill you now,” he tells her. “After all, I warned your father not to get the cops involved.”

Laurel’s head jerks up, eyes wide and shot through with fear, struggles back against her restraints like she’s trying to get away from Martin before she masters the urge, stills her body and lets emotion slip from her face, the expressionless mask sliding into place in front of her eyes instead, blank and carved from ice.

He sees it though, and something cruel, something venal comes over his face, cracks his smile even wider. “I won’t, of course, because there still might be the opportunity for the ransom. But well, if not, he can’t say he didn’t bring it on himself. I did warn him after all.”

Martin hums thoughtfully then, eyes dancing as he stalks closer to Laurel, almost close enough he could touch her, leans over her while he thinks. “Maybe I’ll have you remind him what happens when you disobey my rules. Make him understand what he’s risking by ignoring me.”

He presses redial and this time the line picks up almost instantly.

“I’m here,” Jorge assures them, voice strained and breath fast like he’d been running, trying to get away from his audience, trying to get outside, comply with Martin’s demands.

“Wonderful,” Martin says, sounding like its anything but, his jaw tight. “Prove it.”

There’s a long moment of silence, of static over the line before there’s the sound of rushing wind. “There?” Jorge asks. “I’m by the road, can you hear it?”

“I can.”

“Laurel,” the voice comes, still breathy, still shot through with worry, with terror. “Is my daughter alright?”

“That depends,” Martin tells him smoothly. “Do you have my money?”

“I…” Jorge stutters. “I need more time.”

“No,” Martin cuts him off. “You don’t.”

“I do,” Jorge says quickly, a note like pleading creeping into his words. “Ten million, I can’t just pull that kind of money out of thin air. It’ll take time.”

“No,” Martin says again, voice deadly. “You don’t. You could have had that money for me yesterday had you wanted it. I’m not some amateur, I’ve done my research. So lets try this again.”

“I can’t,” Jorge says finally, long exhale cutting across the connection. “The police, they won't let me pay.”  
Martin draws in a long, slow breath, lets it out. “Did I,” he begins, voice a growl, baring his teeth at Laurel. “Not tell you to keep the cops out of this?”

“You…” Jorge begins. 

“Didn’t I tell you,” he snaps, cutting the other man off. “Tell you that if you went to the cops I would hurt your daughter, kill her?”

“I…” Jorge gasps out.

“I consider myself a man of my word,” Martin tells him, voice still cold but now suddenly smooth, unconcerned. “Someone who follows through on promises. So what do you think that means? For you, for the girl?”

“Please don’t hurt her,” Jorge whispers quickly, desperation cracking through his words. “It wasn’t me, I didn’t speak to anyone. It was the school, they sent someone by, kept asking questions.”

Martin hums, flashes Laurel a long, pleased grin, stalks towards her. “I won’t kill her, not yet,” he tells her father, tells her.

“But only because I’ll give you the time I promised you. Tomorrow at midnight. Either I have my money or I kill your daughter.”

“I can’t,” the other man pleads, words cracking and raw. “I can’t. The police won’t let me.”

“I don’t give a shit what the police let you do,” Martin snaps, voice practically a hiss now, crackling with malice. “I want $10 million or I’m going to make sure your daughter suffers before I kill her. I’m going to break her ankles and dump her as far out into the swamp as I can and leave her there. And she’s going to run into a gator or a copperhead or drown or freeze to death and you’ll never know. You’ll always wonder how she died, but you’ll know she’s dead and you’ll know it was painful. That’s my promise to you Jorge, and unlike you, I always keep my word.”

“And,” he continues, moving closer to Laurel now, Frank’s stomach clenching, painfully, desperately, wondering how to protect her, wondering if he can, knowing that Martin intends some hurt, some agony for her, some slow torture designed to teach her father a lesson. “Even though I’ll give you till tomorrow night, you know I can’t let this stand. I told you not to speak with the police. I told you there would be consequences if you did.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Jorge begs. “Please…”

Frank’s gaze, fixed on Laurel’s face, watches her flinch, her eyes close, tight, like she’s already bracing herself for more pain, for Martin to snap her other wrist, walling off her heart and refusing to feel any of the things she knows are coming.

“Of course I’m going to hurt her,” Martin replies coolly. “What did you really expect would happen if you didn’t listen to me?”

“Please don’t,” her father begs, desperation creeping into his voice, choked with emotion. “I can’t pay you, I need more time, to get the money, to get rid of the cops. Just give me a little more time and I’ll get your money.”

“No,” Martin says smoothly, simply, like there was no thought involved in the decision, like it was a simple choice to make. “I gave you a deadline, I know you can get the cash. We’re not negotiating further. Its very simple. Either I get the money or you never see your daughter again.”

A long moment of silence stretches out between them, seconds that feel like hours until Jorge sighs, tiredly, and Frank knows his expression mirrors Laurel’s tight and shuttered, forcing emotion away from him, closing off his heart, closing off his eyes so that nothing can be seen on his face. “You’re not getting a dime from me,” he says finally, voice flat like he’s walled off his heart, come to a decision that prevents him, utterly from feeling anything, too much for his brain, his heart to handle. He sounds like a man who makes excruciating choices every day, is used to making them, sounds like a man who has made his choice and can think no further on what might have been if he chose differently. He sounds like a man who’s rejected sorrow, has chosen only anger and fierce, grim determination. “You’ve no intention of letting Laurel go. You’ve no intention of anything but killing her. That’s the reason for these deadlines, for the ransom you’re asking. You want an excuse to kill her.”

Frank’s eyes remain fixed on Laurel, her own mask slipping into place, carved from stone so that nothing can reach her heart, so that nothing can break through the miles of shields around her heart, wound her more than she’s already been hurt. If her father’s words mean anything to her, have any effect, Frank can’t see it on her face. No, Laurel remains impassive, blank, like she’s fled a million miles away, observing from a distance, observing something that’s happening to someone else, some other body going to be shot and killed or have her other wrist snapped, things done to some other girl that don’t matter in the least to her.

“Maybe I do,” Martin replies carefully, voice heavy with tension. “And maybe I don’t. The real question is whether that’s a risk you’re willing to take. Listen carefully now Jorge…”

He trails off, glides forward. He approaches Laurel, grinning as she flinches back, just a little hitch of her breathing, a little blink that comes too fast, trying to keep her fear contained but it slips out, slips past her shields. Martin flashes a smile at Laurel, almost apologetic, but too wide, too toothy, brimming with pleasure, and brings his fist down against the arc of her collarbone.

There’s a sickening crunch of snapping bone, nausea rising in Frank’s chest as Laurel’s left arm drops, instantly, hangs down, dead and useless at her side. She doesn’t cry out, doesn’t scream, just lets out a sharp little exhale, barely more than a sigh, almost surprised, confused, like it hasn’t really sunk in what’s happened, what’s been done to her. Laurel glances over at Frank, eyes wide, seeking answers he can’t begin to give her, seeking a salvation he can’t begin to approach, pleading, begging. She’ll forever be needing the things he’s powerless to give her, the impossible things, forever needing Frank to be a different, better man than he is. He wants to turn away, wants to avert his eyes, wants to slam his fists into Martin’s nose, his jaw, wants to pound his fists into his stomach until the other man is broken and bloody on the floor. He wants a hundred thousand impossible things.

Martin’s eyebrows raise, curious, a thin smile twisting his lips. “No,” he tells Laurel. “I think we need something a little more dramatic for your father, don’t you?”

He takes a few steps forward, grasps Laurel by the upper arm, wrenches her shoulder backwards, backwards and up with enough force her chair shrieks against the ground, skitters backwards.

Laurel gasps, teeth sinking into her lip until Frank’s certain she’ll break skin but doesn’t give Martin the satisfaction of crying out, just glares at him as her jaw tightens, stiff and defiant agains the pain he wants her to feel.

He grins, wide enough Frank can see his eye teeth, twists her arm as best he can in her restraints. There’s something mean in his face, something brutal that convinces Frank whatever he’s done, whatever motion he’s forced on her arm, it was one Martin knew was designed to cause pain, as much as possible, designed to produce a cry or a scream, something her father would hear, something that would twist at his gut, make him reconsider his choice not to pay, not to give in to Martin’s brutal demands. This time though, he gets a sharp, strangled cry from Laurel, high and torn as its ripped from her lips as Martin grasps her arm, wrenches her broken collarbone, her broken wrist, the pain overwhelming her, short circuiting her senses.

“Laurel, mija,” Jorge calls, voice low and angry and brutal, nothing like fear, nothing like tension in his words, letting out a long, furious string of Spanish. Frank wonders if he’s urging his daughter again to kill her kidnappers, thinks that must be what’s taking place because there’s a calm, a certainty behind his anger, like he can see the last path left open to them, knows Laurel must take it, must be brave and strong and fierce and find her own way out before death, stalking her heels, finds her.

Tears glisten behind Laurel’s eyes, but she swallows hard, her jaw fierce and tight and she sucks in a shuddering, ragged breath before responding, her own words clipped and angry before Martin’s fist slashes across her jaw, silencing her voice.  
Frank can’t tell whether her anger’s directed at her father, at Martin, at the whole damn universe, can’t tell from the string of words spilling from her lips, hopes for one tilting, nauseous moment, that the two of them formulate some plan, some way out of the trap. For a long, dizzying moment, he doesn’t care that any plan will likely include his death, thinks that’s probably something owed to Laurel, something he should just accept as something she deserves.

Frank glances away, averts his eyes, unable to watch another moment of Laurel in pain, desperate for this to stop, somehow, his throat closing with the urge to scream, afraid to look, afraid to look away, uncertain what he’ll see when he next turns back. He blinks hard against the start of tears, frustration, rage, fear simmering low in his gut, rising to boil in his throat.

“None of that,” Martin says, landing another blow against her jaw. “You remember the rules, don’t you?”

Laurel just glares, her face drawn with pain, deep lines scored across her face and her jaw clamped tight, but her father’s words continue, echoing hollowly across the line, furious, urging, like a prayer to summon something within her, something that can break the ties around her wrists, subdue her captors, set her free and on her path back to him. She ignores him, eyes glancing away from Martin, from the phone he clutches in his fist, fixing on Frank’s, shot through with far off hurt. She stares at him, like he’s salvation, safety, like a far off shore she’s struggling desperately to reach, battered by raging waves, pulled under by the tide before she does more than make out the lights of a far off shore.

He wants to save her, wants to step in, somehow, put an end to this nightmare, convince Martin that more pain won’t get him anywhere, won’t uncover the result he’s looking for, suddenly convince Jorge to pay out the ten million they’re waiting on. No, if anything, Frank’s intervention will only make things worse, will expose his weakness, his helpless affection, make Laurel even more of a target for Martin’s cold rage. The best thing he can do for her is nothing at all, is to let himself wallow in impotent desperation while Laurel’s body gets broken and shattered, while Martin turns her into a creature that will never again resemble the slow grinning girl that raced past him on the trail that morning a lifetime ago.

But he can’t do nothing, can’t just let this senseless attack continue, so he glides forward slowly, catches Martin’s attention and glances meaningfully at the phone still clutched in the other man’s fist.

Martin stares at it like he’s forgotten the phone entirely, stares back up at Frank like he’s unsure what the other man is doing there, in the basement with him.

Eventually though, he lifts the phone back near his ear, speaks across the line.

“Jorge,” Martin snaps, voice smooth again. “I think you know what I’m going to say. I’ll call again at this time tomorrow. If you’ve found the money we’ll discuss how to make payment, how I’ll go about releasing your daughter. If you don’t have the money for me that will be my last communication. And you’ll never see your daughter again.”

He laughs, lightly, clearly pleased with something, jerks Laurel’s arm hard, twisting it again so violently she nearly tips over in her chair. She gives a low, stifled moan, swallowed back before it can become a scream, but that’s enough for Martin, his grin spreading wider.

“If I don’t have $10 million from you by midnight tomorrow, that’ll be the last sound you ever hear sweet Laurel make. But I think it's important you know I’ll be just getting started with her. Do we understand each other?”

“You’re not getting a single fucking cent from me _cabron_ ,” Jorge snarls over the line, suddenly an entirely different creature from the hesitant, begging man who picked up the line, started this conversation with Martin. Frank wonders, at the change, wonders if this man is the one Laurel knows best as her father, why she was, is so convinced their attempts to extort her father were doomed to failure. Because this man, filled with a dark and powerful rage, nearly alive, is not a man who can be extorted, can be bled dry by a random demand.

No, the voice of the man Frank hears over the line is a man who cannot be bullied, who will look an impossible, brutal choice in the face and spit. This is a man who raises a daughter not to flinch, raises a girl who will try and strangle a man to death with her broken arm and zip ties, raises a daughter who denies herself food, water for two days just to make a point and can assure her kidnappers with the blinding certainty of faith that she’s going to get free, going to track down and kill the men who’ve hurt her.

He didn't know where her impossible, astounding belief came from, but now it's clear. Now its impossible to ignore. Here is a man who refuses to look away from ugliness, from pain, who refuses to delude himself about the world and he has raised a daughter to do the same, to confront horrible, brutal reality without flinching, without delusion, who taught her to stand and fight because surrender is as good as death. “But you better not kill Laurel, _tu entiendes pendejo_. Because if you fucking touch her, I’m going to kill you, as slow and as brutal as you were to her. I’ll find you motherfucker, I don’t care how long it takes me and I won’t show a single ounce of mercy. So you have a choice to make too.”

Martin laughs like the man on the other end of the line has told a good joke, like he’s suddenly enjoying himself, the conversation. “Jorge, cut the macho bullshit for half a minute and face reality. I’m going to kill your daughter and you’re never going to hear from me again, never find me again, hell, you’re never going to find her again either. The only way to prevent that is to hand over $10 million in bearer bonds. That’s it. Its that simple. There’s no other possible outcome.”

Whatever response Martin was expecting, Jorge doesn’t give it to him, because the look on his face when the other man speaks edges towards surprise, his jaw just a little too slack, his blinks just a little too rapid. “Mija,” Jorge calls over the line, his voice tight with emotion but still run through with anger, with conviction. “ _Te amo, te amo mi niña_. But don’t break, you understand, don’t break. Not for these fuckers.”

“Don’t fucking break,” Laurel grits out, her jaw tight and her eyes glassy with tears, but glaring fiercely at Martin, glaring heavy, heavy daggers at the other man.

Martin grabs a handful of Laurel’s hair, yanks hard, her head snapping back against the wooden chair back, letting out another sharp, high gasp of pain.

“Remember Jorge,” he says, voice low and menacing. “Midnight tomorrow. Or that’s the last you hear of her.”

He hangs up the phone, grins, pleased at Laurel. “You didn’t obey the rules, but I must say, that turned out better than I could have imagined.”

“He’s not giving you shit,” she rasps, tight with pain but her eyes flashing with defiance. “You can go ahead and kill me, but you've still lost.”

Martin chuckles. “He’ll pay,” he assures Laurel, hands still tangled in her hair, her head jerked backwards, muscles in her neck straining. “I think you did wonders to assure that. He can’t stand to know you’re in pain, and that will crack him, assure my payout.”

“No,” she says firmly, teeth bared in a snarl. “He won’t.”

He just smiles down at her, refuses to release her hair, even as he shrugs. “Well if he doesn’t I’ll just have to kill you. It makes no matter to me, not really.”

“If that were true, then what's the point of all this? Why didn’t you just kill me at the start, save everyone the trouble?”  
Martin’s teeth are like blades in the black pit of his mouth. “There’s no enjoyment in death. Death is too final to be enjoyable. I prefer what comes before.”

“I hope you enjoy it as much when its my turn,” Laurel tells him, as Martin releases her hair, jerking her body away from his, glare still stamped across her face. “I’ll make sure to make it last since that’s what you want.”

“Oh I’ll be looking forward to it,” he jeers before something cruel works its way across his face. “That’s what I love most about my job,” he tells her as she flinches away from his looming body. “You have no power, no chance of ever hurting me, but you delude yourself into thinking you can. What I love most is seeing the moment you realize how foolish you are, how futile it is to resist me.”

“You heard him,” Laurel says emotionlessly, eyes blank, face blank. “I’m never gonna break, not for you.”

He grins wide, triumphant, sparking with the challenge of it. “We’ll see, Ms. Castillo,” he tells her. “But I’m never wrong, not about this.”

 


	22. Chapter 22

Martin heads upstairs soon after that, without any further attacks on Laurel, verbal or otherwise, heads upstairs with a final, lingering glance at Laurel, mean and vicious, a final warning to both Frank and Chris, to keep their eyes on her, make sure she doesn’t try anything.

Chris remains in the basement, silent and scowling. When they can no longer hear any lingering evidence of the other man, Chris turns to Frank, arms crossed tight over his chest.

“I don’t think its going to end well,” he says after a moment, sending a guilty look towards Laurel.

“I don’t think so either,” Frank confesses, wondering what Chris is getting at, what his aim is acknowledging what they can all see to be true, stifling the urge to say something snide, something bitter like ‘no shit Sherlock.’

“I’m not torturing her,” Chris says after a long moment, after his jaw works repetitively, struggles with what to say, what to say to Frank. “No matter what happens.”

“Ok,” Frank nods, careful to keep the feeling like victory off his face, careful not to read too much into Chris’ words, think he has an ally when there is nothing of the sort between them.

“He can kill her,” Chris says. “If her dad won’t pay. But I’m not letting him fucking torture her first.”

“Ok,” he says again, carefully. He wants Chris on his side, wants to get his agreement, his cooperation, doesn’t want to ruin whatever limit Chris has found by pointing out that in Frank’s opinion, probably Laurel’s too, there’s been a whole damn lot of torture that’s taken place already. He doesn’t want to alienate Chris when he’s only just found common ground with his partner, only just found an ally who could stand with him against Martin, make sure that whatever happens, Laurel isn't hurt more than she has to be, that even if she winds up dead because of this disaster of a kidnapping, she at least gets to die painlessly, quickly, at least gets the dignity of a good death. She’s asked that much of him and Frank know, now, thanks to Chris, he can hope to give her that much at least.

“Its not right,” Chris says fiercely. “She’s a kid, she doesn’t deserve any of that.”

“I agree,” Frank tells him slowly. “So what do we do?”

The other man grins crookedly, ruefully, runs a hand through his hair. “We kill her, I suppose. If it comes to that. Kill her before it can hurt too bad.”

“That’s your solution?” Frank asks sarcastically, even as he exhales with something like relief, certain now he can get Chris on his side, finally have his brother backing him in this, that together they can keep things from going from bad to horrible for Laurel, keep her from the worst of Martin’s terrible wants.

Chris shrugs. “I don’t know what else we could do. We can’t just let her go, you know that, even if we wanted to. Not if we want to walk outta here alive too. So, we gotta just kill her.”

“You think there’s any way we could avoid that?” Frank asks him carefully.

“No,” he answers simply. “I really don't.”

Frank nods, stomach clenching, chest filling with the start of panic, little tendrils of it tightening around his heart. He knows there’s a way out, a way out for Laurel and him and Chris, knows there’s a way out for all of them, a way for everyone to make it out safely. He just doesn’t know if any of them will be able to find it in time. “Ok.”

“Ok,” Chris echoes. “Good. You know what you grabbing for dinner?”

Frank tries to grin but it turns into a scowl before he can help himself. “Why, you needa put in a request?”

“Wouldn't mind.”

He rolls his eyes. “What’re you looking for then?”

Chris shrugs. “You think there’s a Halal down here? I’ve been craving shawarma something fierce.”

Frank chuckles, throwing a quick, worried glance at Laurel, seeing if she’s paying any attention to them. She’s staring furiously at the wall, face turned away from them and her eyebrows tight, her jaw tighter, and he’s certain she’s listening with every single atom inside her, too smart, too cunning to be genuinely ignoring them, not when two of her kidnappers are talking, especially when they’ve been talking about her. And it worries him, because he remembers, vaguely, that its some kind of strange Philly quirk to call Middle Eastern places and Kebab shops ‘Halals,’ remembers it from some job they ran out in Cleveland, their local contact completely confused when Frank had asked about whether there was a good Halal around. He hope Laurel doesn’t notice, doesn’t pick up on the strange regional phrasing, or doesn’t recognize it for what it is, some tidbit of information to file away that she can pass along to the cops if she ever gets out of here alive, use it to get them pinched. 

“I’ll see what I can find,” he assures Chris. “Google’ll have to have something.”

He’s halfway to the stairs when he remembers, turns back around slowly. “Hey,” he calls back, catching both Chris and Laurel’s attention, making sure she looks up too but fixing his eyes of Chris, making sure he can feel the heavy weight of Frank’s gaze, know how important the requests is. “If boss man comes down, don’t let him do anything to her. Not unless it's necessary.”

Chris lets out a long slow breath. “I think his definition of necessary is different from mine, man.”

“C’mon,” Frank warns. “If we say we’re gonna keep her safe, we actually have to mean it.”

The other man sighs. “Alright,” he says, shoulders hitching until they’e stiff, resolute. “Alright.”

“Cool,” Frank nods, even as guilt worms through his stomach, twisting tight around his heart. Its so easy for Chris, he’s asked to do something, he agrees, and then he’ll do it. And Frank, Frank is a terrible, pathetic coward, because he vowed, swore to Laurel he’d protect her, keep Martin from hurting her out of spite, out of cruelty and he hasn’t done a damn thing to keep her safe. Instead he’s just stood back, stood by while Martin clipped her across the jaw, probably fractured her collarbone, though he hasn’t had the courage to get close enough to see, won’t ask anything of Laurel while Chris is there with him, still halfway certain she’s continued to keep her silence around the other man. 

It doesn’t matter though, not really, whether its broken or not. He made a promise to Laurel, to himself, that he’d protect her from Martin, from the cruelty in his bones and he’s failed her, completely and utterly, didn’t even voice a token protest when Martin attacked her. He knows why Laurel think he’s so useless, so completely incapable of saving her, because he is, because for all his words he never could. He’s simply a man who will sit back and let terrible things happen because its easy for him, safe for him to let them happen, because he’s selfish and cowardly and pathetic, because whatever it is, whatever strange muddled emotions he feels for Laurel, they’ll never be as strong as the impulse to save his own skin, to remain, safe and unnoticed, in the background.

He thinks, knows that even when it counts, even when it matters, he’ll let those impulses win the day, knows he won’t be able to save her, not even in the way she wants, won’t even be able to give her the painless death she craves, the death by his hand. He know, certain, that if Martin resists, tries to stop him, Frank will cave, roll over like a dog craving his master’s affection.

He heads back upstairs, not before Laurel catches his eye, gives him a look filled with something heavy, something he can't quite interpret, hovering somewhere between angry and sorrowful and worried.

He doesn’t even bother to search for Halal places on his phone, just immediately gets into the car, begins driving, needing to get out of the house, needing to get away from all the things trapped inside the house. He can feel panic blurring the edges of his mind, his vision, pulls into a strip mall off the main road and forces himself to breath, to turn his mind blank before it all becomes too much.

He can’t, can’t settle the racing in his mind, can’t slow the pounding of his heart, can’t stop the anger curling his fists.

“Fuck,” he murmurs and then again, louder until its practically a scream, pounding his fists against the steering wheel, again and again, hoping he’ll split his knuckles, hoping to leave long bloody streaks against the wheel, hoping somehow, to get the rage and grief, the inscrutable, unknowable thing he feels for Laurel out of him, out into the world where he can lose it or study it or kill it before it hurts them more. He just wants to exorcise this demon that’s sunk its claws into his heart. Instead he just gets bruised knuckles and a throat that’s raw and screaming with pain. Instead, he gets no real solution to what he should do, how he should save Laurel, save himself, rid himself of this thing like a tumor, part of himself and yet not, wholly distinctly other.

Frank sits there, silently, until he can think of something else, think on the house, on Laurel without wanting to start the car and keep driving till he runs out of gas, until he can turn the key in the ignition, find a shawarma place on his phone and go there to pick up dinner, until those simple tasks seem manageable once again, until he knows he can go back, eat dinner, sleep without feeling like he’s already lost the battle he hasn’t even quite realized he’s been fighting.

He goes back to the house, slinks down into the basement, hands Chris the second of the bags of food, throw Laurel a long, suspicious glance as he does. She appears not to notice him at first, just continues to stare, vacantly, at her knees, slumped forward in her chair. Eventually though she looks up, turns and meets Frank’s eyes, hollow and distant, like she’s staring at him through layers and layers of fuzzy clouded glass, like she’s trapped deep in space, screaming into the void, mouthing silent pleas that are swallowed, instantly, by the vastness of space. 

He tries to ask if she’s ok, silently, tries to send some kind of silent plea across the space of the basement, needs to reassure himself that she’s ok, has suffered no further harm since he’s been gone.

Eventually she seems to recognize him, recognize his intention, draws in a long breath, draws her spine straight, some of the terrible distance fading from her eyes like she’s bringing herself back, to reality, to earth, recognizing what Frank seeks from her.

Laurel gives him a small, clipped nod, holding his eyes, offering him a sudden softness he wasn't expecting, a reassurance in her gaze he knows is for his benefit alone. There’s a kind of weary affection too, like she would roll her eyes at him if she had the energy, thought Frank would appreciate anything approaching sarcasm from her, had any belief it could cut through the horror and worry sounding across his mind.

He returns her nod, gives a small smile, small and suddenly sweet, the swell of affection catching him off guard, affection for her, for all the strange, confusing things she is, the things she makes him feel. He wants to slip his hand into hers, give her fingers the smallest of squeezes, return the smallest of comforts to her, letting her know she’s not alone, that he’s there, whatever that means, whatever small, insignificant benefit that might be. He just wants her to know that she’s on his mind, that no one else may know she’s there, trapped in this horrible basement, but he does, he knows and he hasn’t, won’t forget her.

“What’d I get?” Chris asks, cutting across his thoughts, tearing his eyes away from Laurel.

“Got you lamb,” Frank tells him, knowing the other man’s partiality to lamb kebabs, his taste always tending towards the expensive side of things, the more flavorful of the options available to him after time spent in juvie where everything was bland, dull and flavorless.

“Awesome,” Chris grins. “With feta?”

Frank rolls his eyes, grinning. “Course with feta. Even threw in some baklava for you, you greedy bastard.”

The other man laughs, wide and sharp, then jerks his head towards Laurel. “What about her?”

Frank shrugs, deliberately casual. “Same thing. Figured if she wasn’t interested in eating again you’d finish it up.”

“Damn right.”

He gives Laurel another long, appraising glance, turns back to Chris. “She eaten with you here before?”

Chris shakes his head. “Nah.”

“You willing to uncuff her hand, let her feed herself?” Frank asks with a sharp scowl.

He frowns, eyebrows raising. “Not sure I wanna do that, man.”

“You’d rather try and feed her, maybe lose a finger while you’re at it?” Frank quips, catching the sharp look Laurel sends him. “She’s not going anywhere, even if you just uncuff one hand.”

Chris sighs. “You better hope I don’t mention to boss man you’ve been letting her arm free to eat.”

“I won’t if you won’t,” Frank offers with a little shrug, wondering if he’s finally found an ally in Chris, finally gotten the other man on his side, willing, finally, to see Laurel as more than a body to be watched, guarded, as someone who’s deserving of respect, who can be talked to, reasoned with, who isn’t their enemy even though they’ve been treating her like one. “And you can be sure she’s not gonna rat us out.”

Chris cracks a small smile. “We’ll have a little talk, she and I,” he tells Frank. “See if we can work something out.”

“Sounds good,” he says, turning his own smile to Laurel, hoping that maybe he’ll get Chris on his side, convince the other man that there’s no need for further violence, further torture, that no matter what happens, she doesn’t deserve any more pain.

He thinks maybe Chris has finally come over to his side, is willing to back him up if he moves to resist Martin, tries to save Laurel in the minute ways he’s able.

Frank heads back upstairs, downs his own kebab and falls into a fitful sleep, dreams full of blue grey eyes, imploring, begging him for something just out of reach, the feel of a gun, cold and bitter against his palm, the feel of a gun pressed heavy against Laurel’s temple, her body jerking spasmodically, falling limp to the floor, blood blooming across her brow, spreading along the floor. He dreams too, of her voice, high and cracked and pleading, begging, desperation spilling from her lips as he fails, again and again, to save her.

He wakes with tears still streaming down his cheeks, sobs choking his breath, feeling the loss already, the loss that hasn’t happened yet but is coming, inevitable, bearing down on them, breath heavy and snarling on the back of his neck.

He forces all that from his mind, forces himself not to think about how there’s eighteen, twenty hours until Martin’s deadline, until her father either pays or abandons his daughter, until Laurel’s life ends, until he’s forced to make a choice, a terrible one, forced to snuff out her life, the small, delicate thing between them that flares, hot and fast like a supernova in his chest. He forces his mind to blankness, forces himself not to think about the things he’ll have to face in the next few hours, forces himself to think only of the next minute, the next breath, nothing beyond the immediate, the things that can’t help but intrude.

Frank reads until it becomes light, until he needs to return to the basement. He thinks about grabbing coffee, donuts or bagels or something, simply can’t summon the energy to leave the house, do more than drag himself back down to the basement, drawn to Laurel like a fish caught on a line, like a compass always pointing towards true north.

Chris is sleeping when Frank descends into the basement, slumped down in his chair, arms folded across his chest. He thinks Laurel was sleeping too because she looks up as he enters, blinks owlishly at him, slow and thick like honey like it takes her long seconds to realize Frank’s presence, to reconcile his appearance in her mind.

“Hey,” she says, slow smile spreading across her face, voice thick and low. 

“Hey yourself,” he tells her, grinning despite himself, feeling like they’re sharing something sweet and secret, something only the two of them will ever know about, these smiles, glances exchanged in the depths of the basement. 

He doesn’t think he would risk it if he didn’t know Chris quite so well, didn’t know the depths of his sleep when it came. If he were a different man, he’d warn Chris about sleeping on the job, sleeping when Laurel is some twenty hours away from the deadline that seals her fate, desperate now, looking for any escape route available to her. She’s always been dangerous, but now, Frank thinks, she’s dangerous without the luxury of kindness or mercy or hesitation. He just hopes Martin never comes down while Chris is asleep, never knows the extent his orders have been defied.

Laurel raises her right hand, gives him a small wave, eyes shining with the beginnings of mirth, a dangerous little grin following the path of her hand.

“Look at you,” he says, laughter rippling through his voice. “Made some progress with Olaf, huh?”

She shrugs, little crease appearing between her eyebrows, almost a frown.

“You two managed to talk yet?” he presses.

Laurel just shakes her head, smile chased from her face, no trace of it even lingering behind her eyes.

“C’mon,” Frank implores. “He’s not so bad.”

He circles her then, edges around to the back of her chair, checks the zip ties on her left hand, the one threaded through the chair rails, checks to make sure they’re still secure, that she hasn’t done anything to compromise them while Chris was asleep. He glances, too, at the bindings on her ankles, not leaving anything up to chance, not going to make anymore assumptions and then wind up with his neck broken this time.

He hears Laurel scoff as he does. “Relax,” she tells him and Frank can tell she’s rolling her eyes. “I’ve been trying those things for hours. Hasn’t budged.”

Frank glances towards her injured arm, still hanging limp and dead, gives a second look for any sign of weakness in the zip tie, inspecting the thin skin around her wrist, checking to make sure the raw flesh of her wrist hasn’t been made worse, that she hasn’t cut deeper into her arm by struggling agains the ties. The skin is still red and puffy, but he can’t see any blood, can’t see anything that looks fresh, like she’s been making things worse by pulling against the zip tie any further. The line of broken flesh along her wrist is still thin too, and while Frank’s no expert, he doesn’t think she’s been doing much to test the integrity of the tie on her broken arm.

“Forgive me if I don’t trust you on this one,” he tells her with a smirking grin, looking up just in time to catch Laurel roll her eyes again, a little grin playing around her lips.

“Wouldn't dream of you doing any different,” she tells him sarcastically, though Frank thinks, hopes he can detect a kind of reluctant affection undercutting her words.

He flashes her a final cocky grin, nudges Chris awake.

The other man jerks upright at Frank’s touch. “The fuck?” he sputters as he jerks upright in the chair, blinks quickly as he gets his bearings. “Frankie?”

“Nah,” Frank says carefully, emphatically, even as his stomach drops, clenches hopelessly, praying to any higher power listening that Chris is awake, alert enough he’ll realize his slip, follow Frank’s lead and course correct, erase the damage that’s been done in exposing Frank. “Just me man.”

“Huh,” Chris huffs out slowly as realization bursts behind his eyes. “Oh. Hey, man. You ain't Frankie.”

Frank huffs out something like a laugh, too breathy, too desperate, hopes Laurel doesn’t notice the slip. “No,” he tells Chris, who looks vaguely guilty, twisting in his seat. “I’m not.”

 


	23. Chapter 23

“My turn to get outta here?” Chris asks as Frank throws a long, suspicious glance at Laurel, wondering if she picked up on anything, if she can tell the backpedaling they’re both trying to do. She’s looking at them, eyes sharp, but doesn’t seem to have realized what exactly’s going on, just that something is, that he and Chris are having some kind of silent exchange, some kind of conversation she’ll never be a part of.

Frank nods. “Yeah. Go get some sleep in a real bed.”

Chris runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back against his scalp. “Seems like all I’ve been doing this damn job is sleeping,” he growls.

“Can’t help that,” Frank tells him with a shrug. “I’d tell you to go find a bar, but I doubt you can find one that’s open.”

“Shoulda brought my X-Box down,” the other man grumbles. “Had something to do at the ass crack of midnight.”

“Definitely closer to dawn,” Frank supplies with a slanted grin that just makes Chris glare even more. “Go watch SportsCenter or something, that’s always on.”

Chris grumbles a bit more, but gathers himself, his things heads back upstairs.

“You like video games any?” Frank throws at Laurel once the other man’s gone.

“Not really,” she replies, already giving him a little nod with her chin, indicating he should come help her with her arm, free her out of the chair. Frank thinks if it were anyone else he’d be angry, feel a little disgruntled about it, the assumption that he’s going to let her out of the chair, but well, they both know its true. They both know he’s a dog that comes at her call.

“Nah?” he presses as he drops into a crouch behind the chair, cuts the tie holding her to the chair. “Too much of a guy thing?”

“No,” Laurel tells him, something like anger cutting through her words. “And yes. Video games are super problematic from a feminist perspective.”

“Really?” Frank asks skeptically, teasing smirk cutting across his face. “Not cause of the violence?”

“That too,” Laurel answers carefully as Frank threads her writs together through the central tie, secures her hands in front of her.

“Bet you're wishing for them right now, huh?” he asks as he cuts the ties around her ankles quickly, jumps back and away from her, still paranoid after she kicked him, used his disorientation to strangle him. “Couple of games to pass the time?”

Laurel shrugs, waits until Frank’s standing again before doing so herself, grabbing the blanket from the corner, settling it down against the concrete. “I don’t really get video games. To be honest.”

“Nah?”

She shakes her head, shrugs again. “They always seem kinda simplistic. You know? Like I’m a good guy, I gotta go rescue the princess or win this battle and kill some Nazis or win this virtual basketball game or something. Never really seemed all that interesting to me,” she tells him as she slides down the wall to the ground, settles against one edge of the blanket, gives Frank an expectant look.

Frank laughs, comes obediently and sinks to the ground beside her. “Suppose that’s good I guess,” he says. “Cause ain't no way you're gonna be playing much of anything with that arm.”

Laurel stiffens beside him, draws in a sharp, angry breath.

“How’s it doing?” he asks, trying to salvage things between them, trying to keep her from anger and hurt.

“How do you think?” she snaps, turning imperceptibly away from him, walls coming down thick and heavy between them.

“I don’t know,” Frank says softly, like he’s trying to soothe an angry, snapping animal. “That’s why I’m asking. Your collarbone broken?”

“The hell would I know?” Laurel snarls. “You think this is just a weekly thing for me?”

His mouth twists. “No, ‘course not. But you’re the one who knows what you’re feeling.”

“Only slightly better than the wrist,” she tells him, scowling deeply. “Other than that, pretty damn shitty.”

“You need anything for it?” he asks.

Laurel shrugs, her shoulders curling in on themselves, her body going small and hunched, protective. “No.”

“Ok,” he nods “Just lemme know, ok? Whatever you need.”

“I don’t need anything you can give me,” she tells him, voice flat and emotionless, turning away from Frank, nearly turning her back to him.

“Ok,” he repeats, stomach sinking. “Sorry.”

“Stop being sorry,” she hisses. “Stop being fucking sorry and do something about it.”

“Laurel…,” he begins.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says sarcastically. “Sorry I’m not being friendly enough for you. I’m sorry that my broken fucking wrist and my broken fucking collarbone and the fact that I’m getting killed in something like twelve hours keep me from wanting to entertain you right now.”

“That’s,” he starts, falters over the sudden tightness in his chest, sudden feeling of guilt renewed inside him. “That’s not what I want, not what I’m asking about.”

“Sure sounded like it,” Laurel growls with a little scoffing shrug, still refusing to meet his eyes, turn towards him.

“Well, it wasn't,” Frank tells her, giving her his own shrug, falling silent. He gets to his feet, tired of this, tired of Laurel attacking him, turning him into her punching bag for all the anger she’s deservedly feeling, but shouldn't be turning on him. If anything, she should be angry at Martin, at her father, at the police, but not him. He’s been her only ally. He goes over, grabs his book, set on ignoring her completely.

But when he looks back up she’s staring at him, tears glistening in her eyes, making them look even bigger, even bluer. He knows then that he’s a piece of shit, selfish and pathetic and not worth a minute of her time, a minute of her attention because all he cares about is himself and she’s sixteen hours away from maybe, probably being murdered and she’s concerned about him, worrying about his feelings and he’s forcing her to do that, forcing her to spend the last hours of her life doing something other than worry about herself, her own life, some way to prolong it. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m just so, so angry.”

He nods. “I know. You should be.”

“God,” she sighs heavily. “I can’t fucking believe I’m gonna be killed before I can get out of Florida.”

Frank pauses before he speaks, weighs his words, hesitates before he allows himself to grin, teasing and slanted. “Death’s one way to get out, I suppose.”

He’s not sure how she’s going to react, holds his breath for it, breath catching as she laughs, quick and huffing. “Not really what I was intending.”

“What was the plan?” he asks her, voice going gentle. “I wanna know. What d’you wanna be when you grow up?”

“I want,” she begins, pauses and swallows hard, continues again, jaw tight. “I wanted to get away from Florida, from my dad. Go somewhere no one knows me. D.C. maybe, Boston, Philadelphia. I wanted to help people, make a difference y’know. Do something more than just make money.”

“You have any ideas about what that’d look like?” he presses, wanting her to keep talking, to focus on the good things, the dreams she wanted to turn into reality, the things she probably thought she would turn into reality until mere days ago. He hopes he’s not hurting her by asking, by pressing her to elaborate on the dreams he’s shattering, snuffing out like candles.

“Not sure,” she says, giving him a sad little smile. “Figured I’d sort it out in college.”

“But something to help people?”

Laurel nods, stares intently down at her hands, placed gently in her lap. “Yeah. Social worker maybe. Or something in immigration. I dunno, thought I’d have more time to figure it out.”

“You might still,” Frank tells her. “I hope you do. You deserve to.”

Laurel hums noncommittally, her body still stiff beside him. “Not sure deserve’s got much to do with it.”

“Me neither,” he admits. “Where would you go to college though, if you could pick anywhere?”

“You trying to make me feel worse about the next twenty four hours?” she asks, voice edged but not angry, not quite yet.

“Really force me to dwell on what I’ll miss?”

“No,” Frank tells her softly, reaching out before he can help himself, wanting to take her hand, twine his fingers with hers. He falters, hesitates, lets his hand drop back into his lamp, limp and forgotten. “No, I want you to focus on the things you want. I don’t want you to give up quite yet. I like you too much.”

Laurel gives him a sidelong glance, seems to notice his intentions, the movements of his hand, huffs a little and grasps his hand in hers, pressed between her palms, threads her fingers through his. He thinks, stomach tilting wildly, that maybe that means she likes him too, just a little, that maybe he’s giving her the taste of something like belief, faith that she needs to keep moving forward.

“So tell me,” he presses. “Where’s your dream school?”

“I dunno,” she shrugs, eyes dropping to her knees, points of color bursting across her cheeks. “Harvard or Georgetown or Brown.”

Frank grins, eyebrows raising. “An Ivy, huh?”

“Doubt my dad’d pay for anything else,” she explains, turning their joined hands over so she can play, idly, with his fingers, stroking her nails across his palm. “He could pay for any school, anywhere, but he won’t. Not unless its someplace prestigious.”

“I’ve seen your grades,” Frank admits, as Laurel traces the lines of his palm. “Harvard’d be lucky to have you.”

“Especially with my killer kidnapping essay?” Laurel asks sarcastically, though there’s a quick little grin that slides across her lips.

“Something like that,” he agrees, ignoring the guilt that chews through his stomach.

“You think I’d be more or less likely to get in if I mentioned I made a friend?” she asks him, smile turning wicked. But then it flees, replaced by a deep, cutting scowl as she slips her hands out of Frank’s to wave dismissively. “Or whatever we are.”

Frank snorts. “Dunno much about college admissions. Dunno what you an me are either. But it makes for a nice twist.”

“It might’ve,” Laurel says, still scowling. “If this whole thing wasn't going to end: ‘And then he shot her in the head.’”

“Could shoot you somewhere else?” he offers, taking a quick step out onto a limb he’s not sure can support his weight, tentative and uncertain about how sarcasm from him will go over with Laurel, if it will cause her to laugh or lash out at him.

“Change things up a bit.”

She throws him a pointed, eye rolling look but doesn’t seem anymore angered than she was before he spoke. “Obviously my vote is for somewhere non-fatal if you have to shoot me. But I don’t think that’s in the cards.”

“No,” Frank tells her. “I don’t think Sven will go for that. If he even lets me, doesn’t want to get it done himself.”

“You promised,” Laurel whispers, more like a hiss, her whole body going rigid beside him, every atom of her body recoiling from him like she’s been burned, betrayed beyond forgiveness. “You fucking promised me.”

“I did,” he says carefully around the thing like grief that slows his tongue. “And I will. I know Olaf’s got a gun. I’ll snag it when I go back up. I don’t care if he doesn’t let me. I’ll go against him on this because it shouldn't matter to him and it matters to you.”

“Is that it?” she asks, still accusing. “You’ll only help when it doesn’t matter, when it doesn’t get you in trouble with your boss? You’re a spineless toad.”

Frank shrugs. “Yeah,” he admits, because its true, its always been true. He’s never been one to stick his head out, to take a risk when just getting by was easier, safer. He’ll do what he needs to do to keep himself safe, his family, his friends, but he’s not one to go against the grain if he can help it, preferring to work in the shadows, preferring to just get along if he can. And he knows that makes him a coward, a coward in Laurel’s eyes especially, this girl who does the same thing he does, stays quiet, stays hidden and unnoticed and overlooked but is nothing like him, who fights losing battles, fights them with everything she has because she doesn’t know any other way, because she knows that anything less will be surrender, defeat, because she believes, still, down to the last atom of her, that it will make a difference. “I am. But that’s not why I’m gonna do it, kill you. I’ll do it because going against him won’t get you out alive, it’ll just make things worse. But this, this I can do and it’ll make things better. Not much, not really, but…”

“But a little,” she finishes as he trails off, soft and sad. “It matters in the only way anything matters.”

He must look confused, must look completely lost and he is, well and truly lost by her words.

“Nothing matters,” she tells him with a little shrug. “Not in any kinda objective sense I mean. But it matters to people. It’ll make a difference to me.”

Frank nods, offers his hand to her, palm up against his thigh, waiting, his breath catching in his throat, as she looks at it, looks up at him, her head cocked slightly. Eventually Laurel sighs, squares her shoulders and reaches out, takes his hand in hers. He doesn't know what to make of the gesture at first, doesn’t know whether her reluctance is to touch him, if she feels obligated somehow to take his hand, or if its something else, something deeper working its way through her mind. Eventually though the tension, the stiffness rolls off her skin and she sags, gentle, against his side. 

“That’s what I meant,” he tells her, apology in his voice as his thumb passes over her knuckles. “That it matters to you. Sven won’t even notice. Because the only people it matters to are you ‘n me.”

“You better do it,” she tells him fiercely, clinging to his hand like it’s a lifeline, her only hope, like she’s drowning and it’s the only solid thing for miles. “You promised.”

He nods, tightens his fingers around hers. “I know.”

“I uh, I coulda been in Mexico this year,” Laurel says softly with a little huffing chuckle. “My abuela said I should come stay with her. My brother’s off at college now and my dad’s always gone and my step mother…”

“Pretty typical stepmom?” Frank guesses as Laurel trails off.

She nods, corner of her mouth almost slipping into a smile. “Of the fairytale variety,” she says, something edging towards mirth in her voice, but tinged with a sharp bitterness that sets his teeth on edge, hating it as he sees it in her, twisting through her like a rot that can’t be contained, eating her from the inside. “Plus a lot of booze and plastic surgery.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’d have much in common,” Frank offers.

“Mutual appreciation for good whiskey, I suppose,” she huffs with a little scowl. “But that’s not a great recipe for making it through high school.”

“Thus enter the abuela,” Frank finishes, trying to turn her mind back to better things, happier things. He’s doing nothing but reading her body, reading the shifts in her shoulders, the pull of her lips, trying to decipher this strange new language, become fluent in silences and yet, even so, he can see the affection she has for her grandmother.

He catches the tiny smile that slips onto her face, small and affectionate and heavy with emotion, her eyes shining with it, before she chases it off her face, tucks it deep within her heart. “She asked if I wanted to spend the year with her, go to the fancy prep school in town that funnels everyone to UNAM and Tecnológico de Monterrey.”

“So why’d you stay?”

Laurel shrugs, gives Frank a slanted grin full of grim irony. “My dad said it was too dangerous,” she laughs mirthlessly. “Said there were still people who wanted to hurt him back there. Serves me right for listening to him.”

“He couldn’t’ve known,” Frank tells her carefully as Laurel’s body sags into his, both weightless and weighty as she leans her head against his shoulder, feeling the anger radiating from her body, the heavy, hot thing that festers somewhere deep within her, burning and corrosive.

“No,” she agrees, her voice sounding tight, choked with sorrow. “But he tries to protect me from things that don’t matter. And he won’t from the things that do.”

“I think,” Frank ventures slowly, cautiously, wondering if he’s saying too much, scratching too close at the place that’s already raw and painful and weeping inside this strange, sharp girl. He hurts her with everything he says, everything he does, with every passing moment she remains with him but he doesn’t want to make the pain worse, doesn’t want to add to his list of sins against Laurel and so he proceeds cautiously, carefully, testing the water for things that lurk beneath the surface, things that want to kill them both. “The point of this job was that he wouldn't see it coming.”

“And half my dad’s job,” Laurel points out icily, a sudden tightness springing into her shoulders. “Is to see the risks that other people can’t.”

“And my job’s to work around that,” Frank shrugs, not sure it’s a good idea to argue with Laurel, with this prickly girl who hasn’t snapped at him yet, but may be edging there, edging towards the point where she retreats again behind silence and steel.

Laurel’s shoulders hitch as well. “He shouldn't be protecting me,” she says finally, fiercely body going rigid against his like she’s holding herself at bay, holding herself ready to fight, to fling herself at him with every ounce of rage within her tiny body. “That’s bullshit.”

“You’re his kid,” Frank points out, fighting off his own guilt about how little his parents were able to protect him from the world, even before he landed in the sights of the criminal justice system, landed behind bars for most of his adolescence. Its only since he’s been released that he understands, how desperately his parents had tried to keep him safe, how it had torn at them when they failed, when they were so worried about Frank being tempted by violence and money and the respect the local bosses commanded around the neighborhood that they hadn’t realized just how dangerous his own dark impulses were, just how tempted he’d be by the worst parts of himself, couldn't protect their son from the beast already lurking within his heart. It makes him feel guilty that he failed them, couldn’t live up to the hopes they had for him, simply sunk them into despair. But, within his guilt, he can also understand Laurel’s father, a sudden empathy for the lurking, distant presence of Jorge Castillo, for the ways he’s sure he believes he’s failed his only daughter. “He’s gonna want to protect you forever.”

“I’m not his fucking property,” she snarls, tearing her hands from his grasp, her body arcing away from his, like its been ripped from him. “That’s what all you assholes don’t get, isn't it? That I’m not just some extension of my father, some piece of tech.”

“I…”

“No,” she hisses, her eyes flashing like coals. “Shut up. I’m still just a means to an end for all of you. But I’m a person, and you're hurting me. Not him.”

Frank scrubs a hand across his beard, wants to tell her she’s wrong, that he knows, perhaps too well, that she’s a person, that her life has importance beyond her relation to her father. But he doesn’t, doesn’t think it’ll matter, because in the only way that counts, the only way Laurel can understand, he’s proved that’s not true, that her importance to him, primarily, is as her father’s daughter, is as a means to damage, destroy her father. In the only way that really counts, the only way that matters, she’s been told, once again, she’s just Jorge Castillo’s kid, nothing more, has no value beyond her last name.

“No one gives a shit about me,” she says, voice dropping until its a low, hoarse rasp, shot through with grief. “That’s what hurts the most. That no matter what happens it doesn’t happen to me. It happens to him first. That I’m never gonna matter beyond being Jorge Castillo’s kidnapped, murdered daughter. No one’s even gonna know my name.”

“I know your name.”

Laurel nods, though her scowl gets stronger, carves sharper lines across her mouth and she doesn’t look anywhere close to convinced. “And in five years? I’m just gonna be another failed job to you.”

“That’s…”

“Shut up,” Laurel demands again, rage laced through her words. “It is true. A year from now you’re gonna see some article about my dad, and I’m gonna be a footnote, some triumphant story about how he overcame tragedy, made another hundred million by throwing himself into work. And that’ll be the first time you think of me in months. Won’t even remember my name unless the article mentions it.”

Frank lets himself stray forward, wander straight into the minefield, dangerous and deadly because he knows he needs to do something, anything, knowing he can’t reassure her, comfort her, but wanting to, desperate and hopeless. He’d tear himself apart if he thought it would help her, bring her a single moment of comfort, would open his chest and present her his heart as an offering.

“Or worse yet,” she scoffs, words getting caught around a sob. “You’re gonna think my name was Lauren.”

“Course I’m gonna remember your name,” he tells her, letting a lazy, slanted grin slip onto his face, hoping, desperately he can give her the thing she needs to let go of her anger, her sorrow. He swallows hard, stomach tight with worry as he barrels forward, hopes he has the thing to ease her hurt, reassure her somehow. “You’re the absolute worst kidnappee I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with. I’m never gonna forget you.”

“Well,” Laurel tells him, ice rippling across her words. “You're the absolute worst kidnapper I’ve met, so I guess we’re even.”

“I can’t imagine there’s anything gets us to even,” he tells her, still attempting a grin, attempting something like kindness, like comfort. “We wouldn’t be even till I’m old and grey.”

“That’s true,” she agrees carefully but there’s something like a thaw, like the first few drops of warming ice beneath her voice, a shifting in the ground that signals a coming spring. “You better not. Forget me. You forget me and I’ll haunt you till you remember, till you can’t forget.”

“Deal,” Frank offers. “You’re allowed to haunt me if this thing goes south. I think its only fair.”

“Don’t care about fair,” Laurel tells him, edge returning to her voice. “Nothing about this is fair. Not for me.”

He nods, truth of her words inescapable, undeniable. “Haunt me anyway. I’d be honored to live with your ghost.”

“Damn right,” she murmurs as a hesitant little grin works its way across her face, almost reluctant but its there anyway and

Frank feels a little thrill of something like pride, something like desperate wanting, craving more, craving the slow spread of her smile across her lips. “You’d be lucky to get saddled with my ghost.”

He nods, thinks perhaps being haunted by Laurel would be the best outcome he can hope from all this, having some small, lingering connection to her, not just the haunting that he knows is coming, the haunting that will come from wondering, endlessly, always, for the rest of his life, what could have existed between them had they been different people, in a different life, met under some different circumstances, wondering ceaselessly if there had been some way out, some way to have escaped the coming disaster. He’s going to be haunted by her no matter how this ends, in blood and death or a last minute reprieve and $10 million in bonds. He’s never going to shake loose of her, certain that the thing that binds them together will outlast even death. He just doesn’t want to have to test that theory out.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 chapters left! We'll be starting to get to the good stuff soon...Let me know if you're still digging where things are headed :)

The two of them are silent for long moments that he thinks turn into hours, silent and unmoving.

He wonders, more than once, if Laurel falls asleep, keeps sending darting glances towards her, finds her awake and staring, listlessly, down at her hands or across the room at the wall.

“C’mon, he says eventually, knocking his shoulder gently into hers. It hurts him, in a place deep inside his chest, to see her hurting, to see her as close to broken as he hopes he’ll ever have to see. “I can’t let you go out like this.”

Laurel makes a little scoffing noise. “I think we’ve already blown the ‘what would you do if you had 24 hours to live’ challenge.”

“Then we’ll do the eighteen hours to live challenge,” he suggests, giving her a prompting smile. “Or whatever we’re at now.”

She gives him a twisting little grin, ironic and bitter. “Well if you want go steal my dad’s Ferrari so I can Thelma and Louise it, be my guest.”

“That’d be your plan?” he teases, eyebrows lifting. He should've known, he thinks, if he was being honest with himself, really honest. He should’ve guessed it would be something like that, something that allows her a death on her own terms, that allows her control up until the last possible moment. He’s seen it since the moment he laid eyes on her, Laurel’s craving for autonomy, for choice and it shouldn't surprise him now that its what she wants.

“Why not,” she shrugs, face closed off. “I’ve been jonesing to wreck that car since I was a toddler. Its that and eating tres leche until I puke.”

“Don’t think it’d be a good idea to steal his car and his kid in the same week,” Frank chuckles. “But I’ll see if I can grab some cake for you.”

Laurel nods but there’s no softening in the hard lines of her face. “Alright.”

“I do like where your head’s at though,” he tells her with another grin he hopes will somehow rub off on her. “Wrecking a fast car and eating till you can’t anymore.”

“What’d be yours?” Laurel asks, knocking her own shoulder into his.

Frank hums, pretends he’s never really thought about it. Its not true, of course its not true, but he can pretend it is. Frank’s spent what seems like months of his life thinking about that, the things he’d do if he were suddenly freed, suddenly out in the world again, what he’d do if he were given a reprieve, given just twenty four hours to be free, to do whatever he wanted.

At thirteen his ideas had mostly been about sex, at eighteen he’d managed to mature somewhat until some ideas snuck in about food, and now, well, he can’t say he’s improved much since then.

He hasn’t honestly thought about it much since he got out, hasn’t really had to. At eighteen, Frank thinks he’d have said he’d want to make himself sick on cheesesteak and lobster and blindingly expensive whiskey, fall into bed with some girl, any girl, and then do something royally stupid and ill advised like running the El tunnel between 13th and 15th streets back in Philly, seeing if he can run between the stations in the time it takes for the next train to come through, going down to Atlantic City and blowing all his money at the craps tables. 

That’d be what he’d said, to anyone listening in that locked treatment facility in northern Pennsylvania where he was always on guard, always watchful, never allowed to really examine his own thoughts, his own desires because they would have made him weak, would have made him unable to function in that place, driven him mad.

But well, he doesn't think that really would’ve been what he’d’ve wanted, almost certain its not. Because the things he dreamt about for the long, torturous decade he was inside were not girls, not Vegas, not lobster. He dreamt about hugging his mom until his arms ached, pressing his face into her neck and breathing in the scent of her, the scent of his childhood and his home and all the things that existed before he was sent away. 

He dreamt about helping his father in the garage, fetching tools and quizzed, endlessly, about various parts and problems and the relative merits of certain years. He dreamt about his father, strong and whole, grease coating his knuckles, baked into his nails like stains, spreading across his hands some kind of modernist tattoo, the sharp, familiar scent of the shop, the constant noise and clamor seeping back into his bones.

Frank dreamt too about running, rarely, rarely allowed to in that place of rules and concrete and steel boxes, of chains around his ankles. He dreamt of running the rocky, muddy trails along the Wissahickon, feet pounding against the earth until his lungs burned, sunlight filtering golden and heavy through the leaves, dappling him, painting him in light like a Renaissance painting.

And he dreamed of floating, gentle, along the water somewhere, though it always looks a little like the Schuylkill, a little like Boathouse Row, because in his dreams he never left Philly, never wanted to leave Philly, the water still and glassy, cool against his feet as the wind whispers across his chest, through his hair, as the sunlight warms the rest of him. He dreamed about a girl beside him, a dark haired girl who’s eyes, even then, had resembled Laurel’s in a way he can’t quite allow himself to examine too closely, a girl who was soft and languid and draped her body over his, pressed her lips against his, against his throat, who pressed her body into his as the gentle rock of the current became the gentle rock of their hips.

He dreamt of his mom’s lasagna, of course, and her ziti and her cannolis and the limoncello his uncle Tino always got from who knows where, dreamt of eating until he was stuffed, until he forgot the taste of juvie, washed the blandness from his tongue, dreamt of the close press of his family around him, loud and clamoring and overwhelming in a way that made his heart seize with affection.

Frank thinks he hasn’t been out of prison quite so long as to want anything else, want anything else, to want to spend his last 24 hours alive doing anything other than being surrounded by the people he loves, the things he loves, doesn’t want to try anything new, doesn’t want to do anything exciting, just wants to be.

He tells her some of it, most of it lies, offers her lobster and skydiving and Vegas, tells her nothing about the girl that looks far too much like her other than that a girl would exist and he would fuck her, confesses something that had once resembled the truth without allowing her any details, anything that gives away anything about his true identity, about his true thoughts or feelings, gives her what he can while still giving her nothing at all. He feels guilty about it, like he should never have spoken at all, but knows he can’t offer her anything more without exposing too much of himself.

She rolls her eyes, as he knew she would, but scowls instead of smiles, face closing up. “That was such a typical guy response,” she tells him flatly. “That I’m almost positive none of its true.”

“I’m sorry you thought the things I’d most want to do if I were dying in twenty four hours were trite,” he tells her shrugging, trying to play it off but knowing she can sense the lie in him, the untruths designed to conceal what he wants to conceal.

“And now I know none of it was true,” Laurel replies, looking almost pleased with herself. “You didn’t even both to defend your lame choices.”

“They're not…” he starts.

“Yeah,” she tells him, cutting him off. “They kinda are. Sex and skydiving and Vegas are so,” she huffs, gives him a little dismissive shrug of her shoulders which has the added advantage of letting her shoulders roll forward, curve in so she can go small again, small and protecting and shielding. “Impersonal. Its cool though, I shouldn't really expect anything true from you.”

He scowls, deep, runs a hand across his beard as he sighs. “I’d just want to be with the people I love, in the places I love,” he confesses. “That’s it.”

“You know what else I’d do?” Laurel asks so softly he almost misses the catch in her voice, the tears that linger just out of reach, seeming not even to have heard him. “I’d go see my mom.”

He hums, knowing she’s not talking to him at all, talking to herself, opening up something dark and dangerous and painful, allowing it to see the light, allowing herself to see what remains inside after she locked it away for who knows how long.

She nods. “I should, I dunno, tell her I love her. That I forgive her. For not being able to be my mom, for making me be the parent too many times. That I get why she had to leave us, so she could get help. And that what I did to her was worse than my dad. At least he was replacing her with someone. I just…I just threw her away, because she was broken.”

Frank’s mind is forced to his own dad, who stands by him, still, despite everything, who’s never given up on him, doesn’t think he ever will. It makes him ache with guilt, with fierce, fierce love for his unconquerable old man. “Don’t think you can throw away your folks, don’t matter how hard you may try,” he offers, certain of it.

“I didn’t know what it was like for her,” Laurel whispers, tears falling softly against her thighs until she scrubs angrily at her cheeks, scrubs them away like she can make herself hard, make herself strong again. “To be broken. I get it now. How hard it must've been, just to keep breathing, how shitty I was.”

“You weren't shitty,” he assures her, struck once again at her concern for her mother, the misshapen, hesitant protectiveness she feels for the woman, the thing that almost, but not quite resembles the kind of undaunted, unyielding affection he’s seen most often from parents. It makes Laurel seem older, this weary love like iron, like she’s long since left childhood behind. It doesn't make what he’s done to her hurt any less, this terrible thing that’s erased what was left of her softness, her innocence, just makes it hurt more cause there was so little left to be stripped away, precious and glittering like diamonds.

“You were hurting. You're allowed to feel too, you know, even if its anger. Even if it hurts other people.”

“I don’t want to,” she tells him, soft and sad. “Hurt my mom, be angry, any of it. I don’t want to be broken anymore.”

“You’re not broken,” he says, pulling her body against his, arm around her shoulders, fingers passing softly against the limp dead weight of her numb arm. “You’re the least broken person I’ve known.”

“Don’t say that,” she tells him, though her body sags softly into his, seeking comfort from his skin, seeking something more he’s not sure how to give her.

“I’ll say it if its true,” he says, fingers ghosting against the feathery skin of her upper arm, up to the sharp span of her shoulder, then across to her collarbone, the broken bone jutting and sharp. His words are deep and steady and he hopes desperately she can believe him, understand that this kidnapping, these terrible crimes committed against her, her anger and her pain, none of them are proof that she’s broken, shattered beyond repair. If anything, Frank thinks, they’ve just made her sharper, stronger, tempered her until she glows, white hot and fearsome.

She leans further into him, head resting against his shoulder, huffs out a slow breath, fanning warm against his neck. “I wish I could go to the beach,” she says, more whisper than anything. “Go out beyond the waves, on a raft or something, just lie there until I couldn’t anymore, let my feet dangle in the water. Drink rum until I fall asleep.”

“Sounds nice,” Frank grits out, startled at how similar her thoughts are to his, startled at how close Laurel is, nothing like space lingering between them. Its like the twin of his mind, the opposite side of a coin, like she knows him better than he knows himself. Frank’s stomach clenches tight, wonders if her fantasy contains a man who’s eyes are just a little too close to his, some shifting specter with dark hair and crooked grins.

“Well its my fantasy,” she says, smiling against his skin, the press of her lips becoming almost, but not quite, something like a kiss, something close and yet not. “You want room on my raft?”

He chuckles, feeling the corresponding rumble through Laurel’s chest. “I’ll bring the coconut.”

“Not the pineapple?” she teases. “Can’t have a tropical party without the pineapple.”

“Naw,” he tells her. “No pineapple. I’m allergic actually.”

“That’s a bit esoteric,” she says, startling a bit, pulling back to look at him, eyes sharp and calculating but her lips curling. 

He shrugs, offers her an apologetic smirk. “Sorry? I know it’d be easier for you if it was peanuts instead.”

Laurel looks confused for a half a second until recognition blooms in her gaze, until a sharp smirk glides on her face, blossoms against the deep red of her lips. “Speaking of, can I put in an order for some Hawaiian pizza and Sweet and Sour Pork for dinner? Its my last meal after all.”

“You’re gonna use your last meal to take me out with you?” he asks, hearing the teasing undercurrent of her words. Laurel nods, smirks with a little shudder of her shoulders, a little grinning twitch. “Wouldn’t’ve expected anything less.”

“So,” she asks then, drawing the word out, her smile slanted and lovely and edged. “Either of your friends have any allergies?”

“I think Olaf might be allergic to onion,” Frank offers with a little rolls of his eyes.

“Figures,” she mutters, scowling. “That the only one without an allergy is Sven.”

“What about you,” he presses because he hates thinking about Martin, hates thinking about the things Martin’s done to Laurel, the things he’s made her feel. “You got any allergies?”

There’s a long slow silence as Laurel grimaces, lips twisting, eyes darting away from his, though she lets her body arc into his again, until Frank once again wraps an arm around her shoulder, presses her tighter against his body, fingers walking up the curve of her arm.

“Ok, now I gotta know,” he tells her with a cocky grin, wondering what kind of allergy makes her feel something he can only describe as embarrassment. He can’t imagine what it could be, can’t think of any allergy that he’d be embarrassed about.

“Latex.”

“Latex?” he asks skeptically, eyebrows raising.

She nods, eyes still refusing to edge closer to him, her uninjured right hand twisting nervously and her body going stiff and trembling beside him.

“Please tell me there’s a story behind that,” he tells her, already chuckling, already expecting there’s a good one, a reason for her embarrassment.

“Condom,” she murmurs eventually. “Not what you're thinking though.”

Frank smothers down his laugh, turns it into something like a cough. “You gotta tell me what it was then,” he tells her, unable to hide his smirk. “Cause, uh, I can only think of one thing.”

“I was putting it on,” she tells him, a small smile finally cracking her lips. “In health class. The condom on a banana thing. My whole palm went up in hives.”

Frank’s chuckling now, grin slanted and teasing though he tries not to, tries to be sympathetic, understanding. Its still funny though. “Bet you're still getting teased about that, huh?”

She nods, shrugs as though it doesn't hurt though Frank can tell by the stiffness of her spine that it does, still. “We were twelve, thirteen maybe, still thought sex was dangerous and embarrassing and hilarious more than anything. And well, everyone suddenly knew I couldn’t touch a condom,” she shrugs again, little twist of her body. “Suddenly everyone knew what seemed at the time like everything there was to know about my sex life.”

“Wow,” he breathes out, careful not to laugh, careful not to let himself grin. And then it flips, instantly, into a scowl, a vice tightening around his chest because he remembers his own harsh entrance into the world of sex, thrown into juvie at twelve with a bunch of boys who saw girls anywhere but on TV, who had no privacy to speak of and who thought of little else beyond sex. He’d discovered sex before he wound up in that place, furtively jacking off as soon as his older brother cleared the room in the morning, in the afternoon, whenever he could.

And then well, even those stolen moments of privacy were taken from him and Frank had to make a choice that wasn’t anything resembling a choice at all. Everyone knew what everyone did in the locked treatment facility, everyone knew and nothing was off limits to bring up if it was thought to gain an advantage. But he was twelve and there wasn’t much of a fight he could put up and well, it hadn’t helped that he knew when every other inmate there touched himself, could use that knowledge as a weapon just as effectively, it still sent shame bubbling through his chest to know that every eye he met the next morning was aware that he’d either jacked off or hadn't.

So, well, he gets it, maybe not exactly, maybe not fully, but he gets having your ideas of sex, your first tentative forays into that world shaped by shame and teasing and hurt. It either breaks you or it makes you strong, fearless. 

“Only good thing is, I never have to bring it up, have that conversation. Everyone already knows.”

“Got all your embarrassment out of the way in one go?”

“Something like that,” she agrees, hands lifting to tangle with his near her shoulder, fingers slipping over his. “It still sucks sometimes, but hardly anyone’s mean about it anymore. But,” she says, shooting him a significant glance, a crooked little smirk. “That all pales next to how terrible things would’ve been if I hadn't touched a condom till I was actually trying to use one.”

He barks out a laugh, because she wanted him to, because he wants to, quick and flashing. “One small advantage.”

“That and it makes it really easy to say no to drunken hookups at parties,” she tells him, smile going slanted even though its still small and furtive. “Nothing cuts through beer goggles like knowing I’ll be winding up in the ER.”

Frank chuckles again.

“Can we uh, can we not talk about this though?” she asks, though a smile still graces her face. “This is supposed to be my twenty four hours to live fantasy, and hives are definitely not a part of that.”

“Right,” he agrees as reality intrudes once again. They are not friends, they cannot be friends; Laurel will always be a tragic creature just out of his grasp, he cannot let himself forget that. “Fast cars and tres leches.”

“And the beach,” she adds significantly. “And pineapple rum obviously.”

“Hey,” he teases. “I get kicked out of this fantasy already?”

“Nah,” she grins, slipping backwards so she can lie against the floor, hands reaching out to Frank. He takes her hand in his, lays down beside her, their shoulders, hips nearly touching. “You can still be there. Guess you don’t get any booze though.”

“That’s a bummer of a fantasy,” he tells her, fingers ghosting over her knuckles. “If you won’t even let me get drunk with you.”

“It’s a fantasy,” she points out, laughing as she turns onto her side, curls her body against his, tucking close against his hip and her knees pressed into his thigh. “Imagine yourself something else.”

Suddenly though, she’s too close, far too close, the scent of her, the sight of her filling his senses, until he goes rigid, until his breath catches in his chest, overwhelmed by Laurel.

He thinks Laurel sees it too, feels it, the thing crackling like fire between them, the thing that’s gone up in flame in the millimeters of space separating their bodies. Her pupils go wide and Frank can her the hitch in her breath, feel the tremble in her body, sudden and jarring. His eyes, drawn down to her lips like he’s a puppet on a string, led wherever she commands, watch her tongue dart out, wet her lips, red and full and he feels himself desperate to lean forward, close the distance between them. But he won’t, he can’t, because he’s hurt her enough and this, this will be a betrayal he doesn’t think he can come back from, a terrible violence he’s not sure he can let himself commit. But he wants to, oh how he wants to, with a hopeless longing, a craving he knows he’ll never sate. Her lips part slightly, tongue darting out again, teeth sinking down into her lower lip, pulling at the plump flesh. But instead of pressing forward, closing the last few centimeters between them he pulls back, tears his eyes from hers, breath harsh and torn with the effort.

“What are we doing?” she asks softly, breath fanning against his skin, warm and sweet and dragging him forward again, not close enough they touch, but closer, closer, wanting to press his lips against hers, wants to know her taste.

“We can’t,” he rasps, though their fingers still tangle together, unable, unwilling to drop her hand. “Whatever this is, we can’t.”

Laurel pulls away, rolls to her back as she lets out a long slow breath, taking their joined hands with her. “I think its too late for that,” she confesses.

“We can’t,” he says again, like if repeats it enough times it will come true, become fact, will bleed into their hearts and smother the dangerous emotions brewing between them.

She hums, sighs and tightens her fingers around his. “I know. I know we can’t.”

He nods, thinks about lying to her, the thought just beginning to form in his mind when the words are drug out of him. Frank simply can’t lie to her, not even about this, not even about the things he thinks he should, the things he thinks he should protect her from, the dangerous, disarming, hopeless thing that grows stronger with every breath. “I want to though,” he confesses. “God I want to.”

She turns only her head this time, meets his eyes and her mouth pulling into a grim line and her eyes hollow and clouded.

“You really are an absolutely terrible kidnapper.”

He sputters out a laugh, taken aback.

“Even before this, whatever it is,” she tells him, pulling her hands from his so she can gesture, vaguely, between them like it’s a thing that has form, substance, that slips through the air between them like a cloud. “You didn’t have the heart to hurt me.”

“Why would I wanna hurt you?” he asks as her fingers catch against his hand again and he pulls her bound hands into his, presses them between his palms for a long moment before Laurel pulls away again with a little hissing noise of pain, curls her arms against her chest.

“Sorry,” she tells him after a moment, though her words are thick and he can see tears glistening in her eyes. “My arm…it hurts to move much.”

“S’ok,” he assures her, though he hates being reminded of her shattered wrist, her broken collarbone, hates being reminded of the things that have been done to her because they can, because someone with power decided to use it to cause her pain, not caring if it got them any benefit, any effect, just caring that it made Laurel hurt. “That’s what I mean though, when I say it wouldn't do me any good to hurt you. Didn’t help anyone to do this to you, so why’d I wanna?”

She shrugs, something like a thick and choking sadness tempering her words. “Cause I tried to escape, cause I tried to kill you, cause I looked at you wrong. Doesn’t matter why, what matters is that you could’ve. And that you didn’t.”

“Doesn’t make any damn sense to go after you like that,” he tells her, turning so he can meet her eyes again. It’s the simplest thing in the world and the hardest, choosing not to hurt her, not to give into the easy, violent temptations, the anger and frustration that could have edged through his heart, the churning, mounting desire to force her to listen, to comply, to submit to his demands. He could, and he knows it, knows how easy it would be. But he knows too, what it would mean for him to do that, knows the person that would make him, and he can’t, he can’t. He knows too well what its like to be powerless, knows how easy someone with control can take everything away, how easily he could leave her crumpled and broken. But he doesn’t want to, doesn’t think he can. He’s spent too long in her shoes and if that makes him weak, if that makes him useless and foolish and impossibly naïve, well that’s ok too.

“Doesn’t matter if it makes sense,” she tells him, like she’s explaining something simple to a slow, stupid child. “You still could’ve. Just because you wanted to.”

“But I didn’t want to,” he points out, because really its that easy. “Hurting you isn’t going to get me what I want, its not even going to make things easier.”

“It still makes you a pretty awful kidnapper,” she points out, head turning so that there’s no chance of meeting his eyes.

“Cause I’m smart?” he smirks.

“Cause you're missing the point of kidnapping,” she says, a bladed edge working its way into her words. Frank recognizes the shift, recognizes that he must be careful, cautious or she’s going to lash out, try and hurt him like she’s been hurt. He may not be fluent in the things Laurel doesn’t let herself say, but he’s getting better, getting something like a working knowledge, enough to get by.

“I don’t see it like that,” he tells her, shoulders hitching. “Point of kidnapping’s keeping you in one place till I get paid. Don’t need to hurt you for that. Hasn't really helped my buddies any.”

“I did almost kill you,” she points out, tilting her head towards him as the ghost of a smile plays around her lips. “So I’m not sure your way’s been much help either.”

“But you're not fighting me now,” he counters, still smirking. “You're talking to me and I’ve convinced you to eat and you're a lot more comfortable than you are when Olaf is down here. So I’d count that as a win.”

Laurel’s eyebrows pull in and her lips twist. “None of that helps you though,” she tells him slowly, like her mind is somewhere else, thinking of some other thing, trying to sort out what exactly Frank means, what exactly his intentions are.

“Yeah it does,” he insists, shrugging again. If she can’t see that then she’s blind, then she doesn’t understand anything of what moves between them, the small little thing they’ve struggled against, breathed into being. If she doesn’t understand then she doesn’t understand anything of what he feels for her. “I still gotta worry about you, at least a little. But I would if you were tied up. I’d much rather get you talking, get you like this than have to talk to myself for twelve hours.”

“You seemed pretty content to do that,” she points out, her tone too casual to Frank’s ears, like she’s testing him, wanting some answer from him but doubting she’ll get it, ready to be disappointed. “Talk to me whether or not I was gonna respond. Read out loud.”

“Maybe, but this is better,” he tells her. “You know I think so, you know what I feel.”

“I don’t,” she tells him quickly, her words cold and harsh, designed to hurt him. “Because it doesn’t make sense.”

“I know,” he admits, crossing his arms over his chest, not daring to sit up, not daring to give more of an indication of the fight he knows is coming, that Laurel’s words rake against him like knives. “But that doesn’t mean its not how I feel. If I could take it back I would, if I could make myself not give a damn about you, I probably would. Because this fucking hurts and its terrifying and it fucks everything up. But even if I could get rid of everything else, I’d still treat you like a human. Because you are, and you deserve it.”

“That’s because you’re a terrible kidnapper,” she repeats. “I’m not supposed to be a person to you.”

“So I’m a shitty kidnapper,” he agrees, offers that to her. “Wouldn't you rather I be a shitty one than one that hurts you?”

“I don’t know,” she tells him with a scowl. “This…this might be worse. I know what I’m getting with Sven. I know he’ll just break another finger, knock me out. That can’t hurt me, you can.”

“I don’t want to, you know I don’t,” he assures her, heart sinking. They do nothing but hurt each other, the two of them, do nothing but rip at the weak places they find. 

“I hate you,” she tells him fiercely, every word an accusation. “So much. For making me feel like this. For not being able to hate you.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, forever apologizing to her for things he can’t stop, can’t resist. “You should. Hate me. It’d be easier, simpler. I’d choose to hate you too, if I could.”

“I can’t,” Laurel says, looking miserable, looking hopeless and heartbroken. “Don’t you think I would if I could?”

“Of course,” he gasps out. “God, of course.”

They retreat into silence then, nothing that can be said to make things better, easier, nothing that can ease the hurt in them.

 


	25. Chapter 25

“You know,” Laurel says after long, long minutes. “You're actually losing money on this kidnapping you know.”

Frank hums, makes a little noise of confusion.

“If you don’t get paid,” she continues glumly. “You went through all this for nothing. Wasted money too probably.”

He hums again. “Probably did.”

“Will you get any money at least?” she asks softly, shifting to her hip, turning and watching him, watching his face.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Probably. But not as much.”

“How much will you make then?” Laurel asks stiffly, eyes narrowing at the corners. “How much am I worth?”

Frank shrugs. “Dunno. Ten thousand or so.”

“If things had gone right, how much would you’ve made?” she hisses, every syllable an accusation, an indictment.

“Fifty thousand.”

Laurel nods, and Frank can see the clench in her jaw, tight and angry. “Fifty thousand,” she echoes.

“Its uh, its actually pretty good pay for a few days of work,” he offers sheepishly, unsure what kind of response she wants from him, unsure what he can say to make any of this better, less insulting, less degrading.

“You get fifty thousand if you secure some other asshole ten mil?” she asks him, eyebrows lifting. “I think maybe you should renegotiate your rates.”

Frank cracks a grin, long and smirking. “Yeah,” he asks her. “You think I’m worth more?”

Her eyes dance with something wicked, something sharp and dangerous. “I think you’re the one taking all the risks, doing all the actual work.”

“Crime doesn’t work that way,” he points out with a scowl. “I gotta work for people.”

“Maybe you shouldn't,” Laurel tells him with a shrug.

“Giving my career advice now?” he teases.

“Why not?” she shrugs again. “Being an errand boy doesn’t seem to be doing you much good.”

“I’m doing fine,” he says bristling before he can help himself.

Laurel hums noncommittally. “Ten thousand for all this hassle doesn’t seem like you're doing too well.”

“Beats flipping burgers,” he tells her because when he got out of juvie Frank had had a choice to make. He could’ve tried to go straight, tried to get a job flipping burgers or doing construction or fixing cars, working minimum wage or close to it, a kid with a GED and no real skills and a shitty attitude. And instead he took the easy way, went straight to crime, to making a quick buck with the skills he actually had, using the things he’d picked up while other kids were learning Spanish or Algebra or History. He’d never really thought about it at the time, the choice he had to go straight or go the easy route, make money and stick with crime, but he knows he never really had much of a choice. 

He knew, even then, that there was nothing for him in the real world, nothing he could offer the real world. He belonged there, in the darkness, in the shadows of the underworld, didn’t know how to deal with people on the outside, people who had lived normal, boring lives, who had jobs and families and weren’t constantly looking over their shoulders, waiting for the hanging ax, for their luck to run out. Frank’s been outrunning his own luck since the day he was released, outrunning death and handcuffs and getting returned to that place of cinderblocks and steel bars, doesn’t think he has it in him to relax, to go straight, to let himself trust that he’s out for good and can stay out.

She laughs quickly. “That’s true. But its not just a choice between crime and burgers you know.”

“I like crime,” he tells her, wondering how he’s found himself explaining his choices to her, the strange combination of events that have lead him here, to this place, having this conversation. “And I happen to be pretty good at it.”

“You don’t like this crime,” Laurel counters.

“No one likes kidnapping.”

“Maybe not,” she hums, grows somber. “How much time do I have left?”

“I don’t know,” Frank confesses. “Little bit of time yet.”

“How’re you gonna get my tres leche?” she wonders, reaching out and toying with his fingers, twisting them in her own.

“I’ll figure something out,” he assures her, thumb tripping over her knuckles. “Tell Olaf its your last meal request.”

“Could you, uh, could you stash a file or something in the cake like they do in the movies?” she asks with a quick, flashing laugh, a crooked grin.

“Where’d I even get a file?” he asks, refusing to acknowledge just how badly he wants to go ahead and do it, figure out some way to free her, to keep her alive, this hopelessly perfect girl.

She rolls he eyes. “Hardware store maybe?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he tells her. “But wouldn't you rather have a gun or something?”

Laurel snorts. “Probably. Though a gun’d ruin my cake I think.”

“And a file won’t?” he asks, teasing.

Frank can’t do much for her, can’t save her, can’t comfort her, but he can do this, make he smile, make her forget, just for a moment, make her roll her eyes and snort and focus on absurdities like files baked into cakes, ignore the slow creeping darkness, the death that stalks her heels, the men who lurk above her with malice in their hearts and pain in their itching fingers.

“No gunpowder in a file,” she tells him, laughter rippling across her voice as she shifts her body and suddenly she’s rolled to turn onto her stomach, letting out a hissing exhale, pain he thinks, or discomfort. She rests her chin against his chest, body tucked close against his hip and turns her cheek so it can rest, soft against his heart. She’s too close, Frank thinks, overwhelmingly close, too much of her curves and angles draped against him, so close he can feel the flutter of her heart, the stumble of her breath.

Frank brings his arm up, curls around her shoulder, fans out against the sharp jut of her shoulder blades, feeling the warmth of her skin under his palm, the play of muscles and the gentle rise of her chest.

“What kinda half baked escape attempt is this?” he murmurs, watches the slow spread of her smile, watches as Laurel lifts her eyes to his, heavy lidded and hopelessly blue.

“Better get me a whole baked tres leche,” she growls around a slanted grin. He can feel the rumble of her voice across his chest, low and rasping, feels it deep within his bones. He runs his fingers idly across the nods of her ribs, feels Laurel’s huffing laugh, her squirm at the press of his hands.

“Whole baked tres leche and a file,” he confirms. “What’re you gonna do with a file anyway?”

“Dunno,” she shrugs. “Whatever they use it for in movies?”

Frank snorts. “I think its to saw through the bars actually,” he tells her.

“Really?”

He nods. “Think so.”

“I could use it on the zip ties though,” she muses. 

“Well, I’d prefer you didn’t,” he tells her.

Laurel hums and her body stiffens against his, tight with tension. “And I’d prefer not getting shot, so…”

“I’m gonna figure something out,” he tells her. “I will, I promise.”

“No,” she tells him fiercely. “You won’t. And that’s fine. But I need you to stop lying to me.”

“I’m not,” he insists, hating her scowl, hating the way she simply doesn’t believe him, doesn't believe its possible she’s making it through this alive, will ever get out of this basement. “I haven’t figured out how, but I know I will. Whatever it takes.”

He thinks she’s going to pull away, separate herself and drop walls between them, thick and impenetrable, but she doesn’t, just sighs sadly, like Frank’ disappointed her, like he’s failed some test he didn’t realize he was being given.

“You don’t need to save me,” she snaps, lifting her head to glare furiously at him. “That’s not your job. And its fucking patronizing. I can save myself.”

“I know you can,” he tells her, because he does. He knows she can save herself, she almost has three or four times, knows she’s come damn close each time. He knows if anyone’s gonna save her, its gonna be Laurel. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to, do whatever’s in his power to keep her safe, keep he whole. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t kill him to think of her hurt, killed, in pain if there was something, anything he could have done about it, any way he could have stopped it. “But am I allowed to help?”

“Not if you keep acting like I can’t figure it out myself,” she hisses and he feels the fingers of her good hand tighten, almost painfully, against his chest, nails pressing down into his skin. “I don’t need you.”

“I know you don’t need me,” tells her softly, hand stroking along her spine, along the ridges and divots, feeling the sharp inhale of her breath. “Of course you don’t. But maybe you want me instead.”

Laurel presses her cheek over his heart, hums against his skin. “Maybe.”

“Only maybe?” he presses, his grin slanted.

“Maybe,” she repeats as a lazy grin works its way across her face, sharp and feral though the tension, the sudden worry between them lifts like early morning fog, fades into the air as though it were never there at all.

“Ok,” he replies, lifting his head slightly to better meet her eyes, assure her that whatever she gives him, whatever tiny minuscule scraps of affection, of tolerance, of anything, he’s willing to take without complaint. He just wants. Wants her, wants more, always, greediness raging through every last molecule of him.

He continues the movement of his hand up and down her back, slow and smooth, brushes some of the soft, dark hair over one shoulder so that he has a better path, wanting to leave his fingers tangled in her hair, wanting to press his nose against the strands.

He can feel Laurel’s body go loose, liquid at his touch, feel her breath deepen until it comes out in long, slow sighs. Asleep he thinks, or close to it. Its probably for the best that she sleep, probably the best way to get through the next few hours, divert her mind from the disaster of fate and bad luck and coincidence that is hurtling towards her, stop focusing on the things she can’t change, the things that will destroy her.

And yet, he aches with it, because he wants, wants her, wants more. More time, more words, more of the secrets she keeps locked against her heart, the doors she’s slowly cracking open to him, letting him peek inside. He wants to see how much more this thing between them can expand, how much larger, how dangerous it can become. He doesn’t want to stop until they find a limit, wants to keep discovering this compulsion, this madness with her until it reaches the edges of the universe or until it shrinks back into nothingness. He just wants, to know, to feel. He just wants her, completely, always. 

Its an addiction or a compulsion and he can’t imagine what will happen if suddenly its gone, snuffed out and snatched from him. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if this thing, if Laurel is taken from him before he can understand it, understand her. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she’s taken from him before they can really even begin to understand what they’ve been given, cursed with. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if this girl, small and sharp and flawed, no longer exists in the universe.

So he does what he can, takes what he can from her, gives back the only things he can, hopes its enough; enough for him to comfort her, enough for him to try and memorize the lines of her body, the cadence of her breath, enough to convince the universe not to take this thing away from them, not when they’ve only just found it, not when it’s a miracle and madness and inevitability that’s lead them to discovering it at all.

He can’t tell from the shifts in her body the moment sleep becomes awake, can’t even tell if she was ever sleeping at all, just knows that one moment there’s nothing, just the mingled sounds of their breaths, hearts beating together, slow and steady and the next she splits the silence apart.

“I don’t want to die.”

Frank’s fingers falter, resume their path along her spine, hoping Laurel doesn’t notice. She does of course, can’t help but notice his body’s response to her words, soft and slow and filled with a heartbreak he’s certain she’s far too young for. “I don’t want you to die either.”

“Have you killed anyone before?”

He thinks about lying, thinks for half a second about it because it’s a terrible idea, and stupid too, to confess a murder to a girl who has every reason to want to see him fry, see him locked away until he’s old and grey. He doesn't think she has enough to ever find him, ever track him down and have those murders come back on him, but its still not good business practice to confess more crimes to your victims. Even so, he finds himself telling her the truth, finds himself unable to lie to her, not now, not when it sounds like the only thing keeping her from terror are the words he speaks. “Yes.”

“Who?”

“People who were gonna kill me if I didn’t kill them first,” he says, offering her the only answer he can.

“Have you ever killed someone like this?” she asks him, voice so low he can understand her only through the rumble of her words across his skin. 

“No.”

Laurel nods, a tightness creeping into the skin at the corner of her eyes. “Ok.”

Its clearly not ok though, because she pulls back, pulls away from him and sits up, knees pulled tight against her chest even though it makes her hiss with pain to hunch her shoulders like that, to curl against her broken collarbone. There are lines of tension around the corner of her mouth and her eyes are heavy lidded, almost drooping with distant hurt.

“I’m not big on killing people who don’t have their own weapons,” he tells her, following her upright so that he sits against the wall, the distance between them inches and miles, vast and unforgiving. His voice is almost a growl because he’s not going to falter on this, not going to balk. Its gonna be hard, knows its practically gonna kill him, but he’s gonna do it anyway. Because she wants him to, needs him to. Because she asked. “But I’ll make an exception for you.”

He’s not sure what he’s expecting but the cold blank look on her face is not it. She just stares at him as though he hasn’t spoken, as though his words have no meaning, no impact. “You could always give me a weapon you know,” she says finally, staring angrily at the opposite wall, staring through it like its personally insulted her. “Make it even.”

“Laurel,” he grits out against the clench in his jaw. He’d love to give her a shot at getting out of here, make it a fair fight between them, but he knows that’s not in the cards, that she is and always will be at a disadvantage, always deliberately hobbled by men who want to keep their power, keep her subjected to their will, scared of the things she could do, the things she’s capable of.

“It’d be only fair,” she tells him icily.

“Laurel,” he says again with a scowl. “You know there’s nothing fair about this.”

“No shit,” she snaps, her body going rigid and furious. “If anything here was fair you’d be going after my dad.”

“We are,” Frank sighs. “We’re going after him where we thought it’d hurt the most.”

“I told you he cares about his money first,” she hisses and he sees the fingers of her good hand tighten into a fist, sharp and tense. “He doesn’t give a shit about me. All this happened cause you didn’t do your damn research.”

“All this happened because someone told us to kidnap you,” he says, breathing out a long, resigned sigh. “Doesn’t matter what he cares about, I go where I’m ordered. I get asked to kidnap someone, don’t really get to decline.”

“You're a monster,” she tells him flatly, the words catching him off guard like a punch across the jaw, like a blade against his heart. She doesn’t say it like an accusation, doesn’t spit it out like she wants him to hurt, wants to cut him, wound him, just breathes it out like she understands, finally, what he is at heart, like her eyes have been opened to the darkness within him.

“You try to play it off, try to pretend you have no choice, but you’re a monster.”

“I’m…” he chokes out before his throat closes, stopped up tight with the truth of it.

“You are,” she tells him, eyes cold and distant. “You act like you’re a good guy. But you're not. You're worse than any of them because you pretend you’re good, pretend you’re just following orders. But that doesn’t excuse you. You’re still a monster. You’re the worst of them all because you want me to think you’re good, that you’re better than them. You're not.”

“I know I’m not,” he grits out, throat still closed tight with grief, with horror. Its true, he’s a monster, he’s the worst of them all because he lurks in plain sight with smirks and promises and bribes, lures Laurel into liking him, tries to convince her he’s not evil, not a monster. He tries to get on her good side, the wolf at her door luring her to open up, let him inside, the bladed knife concealed behind his quick smile.

“I hate you most of all,” she tells him. “Because you make me feel guilty for it, hating you, you make it so hard to.”

“Good,” he finally breathes. “Good. You should hate me. You should run away from me as fast as you can.”

She snorts, rolls her eyes. “I can’t run from shit. You assholes made sure of that.”

“Then you should stop talking to me,” he urges her, desperate, running both hands through his hair, voice cracking as he pitches forward, draws his knees to his chest. “Go back to giving my the silent treatment. It’ll keep you safer.”

“Nothing keeps me safe,” she tells him somberly, body still curling tight and small like she can protect herself from what’s coming, protect herself from him though her voice is edged and dangerous, cut through with steel. “Not from you.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop.”

“You won’t,” she says, certain, her voice hollow, resigned. “You can’t.”

He nods. “I can’t,” he echoes.

They stumble into silence once again, thick and heavy like fog, wrapping around them, obscuring everything around them, choking and harsh. Laurel keeps her knees tucked up tight against her chest, glaring mutinously at her feet, the lines of her body tense and rigid, ignoring him.

Eventually though she gets to her feet, still silent, stalks back and forth across the floor from wall to wall and back, Frank watching her cut a path across the cement.

She pauses, ducks down and grabs the book from near her feet from the little pile of debris he’s managed to create in the past few days, fumbling it between her bound hands.

Laurel tosses it in his direction, striking softly against his chest landing in his lap.

He raises his eyebrows in question, scowls in confusion.

“Read,” she orders, her voice tense and commanding.

Frank hums. “Yeah?”

“You’ve put so much time into this damn book, it’d be a waste not to finish.”

“Ok,” he says slowly, stretching out the syllables. “That’s…that’s what you want?”

She looks for a long moment like she wants to snap at him, wants to sip out his throat with her fingers, her teeth bared and her good hand curled into a claw. “No, but it’s the only thing I can hope to get right now.”

Frank nods, automatically. “Ok,” he says again, hating this, hating himself, hating her, hating that his voice is the only thing he can give her, the only thing that will make anything better, just a little. He’s useless, useless and selfish and he wishes she would just scream at him, scream at him and tear him down and tell him all the ways he’s failed her.

But she’s asked and its all he can give her so he waits until she’s sunk back down to the floor, back against the wall as she faces him across the room, grim and weary, begins reading again.

He’s not that far from the end, hopes he can finish it before time ticks down, before Chris comes down to relieve him, wonders if she’ll be willing to take the book from him, keep reading after Frank goes back upstairs, willing to let Chris see her reading, see that she found some kind of truce with Frank, was willing to take a book from him. He suspects she won’t, that she’ll remain committed to silence and stillness and the high thick walls she’s built around herself, protecting what remains of her heart.

It makes him sad, in a way he can’t quite understand, not fully, like the truth remains frustratingly out of reach, that Laurel may never finish the book, may die without getting to the end, without knowing the ending. It makes him ache, deeply, to know how many things, how many thousands of tiny, unimportant minuscule things will remain unfinished, unsaid, half spoken sentences and thoughts left lingering in the air, an entire lifetime reduced to ellipses, trailing off and broken.

But he begins reading anyway, though his voice is thick and abrasive against his throat. Its all he can give her, and so he’ll give and give until he can forget all he’s taken from her, all the things he’s stolen, all the things she’ll never get back.

Frank watches her eyes slip closed as he reads, heavy lidded, and her head fall back against the wall, mouth parted just enough that he can see the glint of teeth, the sharp dart of her tongue. She remains awake, he knows she does, watches the occasional shift of her legs, her arms, the roll of her shoulders to relieve the terrible ache in her arms, but says nothing, just lets him read until his voice grows numb, until his head begins to pound, until the letters begin to blur and slip into each other, snakes chasing their tails.

“Your turn,” he rasps then, folding down a corner of the page and shutting the book while he cracks open a water bottle, drinks half before he even notices her watching him, eyes open and depthless as they pierce his skin.

She stares him down, glowering, but Frank takes the risk, tosses her the book anyway, slides it across the floor like a hockey puck until it stops, gently against her shin.

“I need a break,” he tells her, gulping down the rest of the bottle. “Gotta pull your weight for a few minutes.”

Laurel glowers, eyebrows pulling tight together but eventually reaches down to snag the book with her good hand, lift it into her lap. She fumbles a bit, her limp and broken arm making her clumsy, uncoordinated, but eventually settles it in her lap, gets it open to the right page. She gives him one final glance as she does, a challenge in her eyes and something almost like a smirk curling her lips. Laurel glances back down then, at her hands, at the book, and although Frank expects something then, nothing comes.

She just stares at the book in her lap and it takes Frank far, far longer than it should to realize that its not nothing, she’s just reading silently, ignoring him completely. He doesn’t really want to admit that it takes him until she gasps a corner of the page in between two fingers, gentle and tentative, and flips the page forward, to realize she’s reading and not just staring, but it does. 

He wants to say something, something mean, something to let her know that its kind of a bitch move to just start reading silently when he was kind enough to read out loud. But he gets it, because she’s pissed and she has no power, no way of hurting him, making her anger known, no way to control anything else in her life. He used to do the same thing in juvie, he’s pretty sure everyone did; staging meaningless rebellions, little inconsequential ways of pissing off the guards, making his anger, his frustration known, taking back some minuscule modicum of power in the only way he could, by doing only the minimum he was asked, by always dragging his feet coming back from the yard or the showers or the chow hall, by a thousand other things that helped him convey his hate without words, that helped him feel like sometimes he could obtain something approaching control in his life. So he lets it go, because he gets it, and he’s ruined enough things in Laurel’s life, lets her have this one thing she thinks will hurt him because she’s been hurt far, far too much and deserves to do a little of the hurting for once. 

He’s used to silence, to boredom, so he lets it go, tries to remember what came next in the plot, tries to fill in the gaps himself. And he watches her, of course he does, can’t help the thing almost like a compulsion that draws his eyes to her. She rests her injured arm against the bottom edge of the book, deadweight holding it down so the book doesn’t flip closed, her other arm held close across her lap, the zip tie between her arms twisted and pulled tight so that she can get the proper angle and still continue to see the page. She flips the pages forward with two fingers, the gesture always slow and smooth and strangely soothing.

He watches her eyes, fixed on the page but widening, narrowing, eyebrows pulling in as she reacts to something she’s read. Her mouth too, is almost impossibly expressive without doing anything at all, the edges twisting into frown, smiles, her teeth worrying her bottom lip or tongue peeking out from between them. Frank knows he shouldn't let himself be drawn in by her lips, but telling himself that and acting on it are two different things with a gulf between them stretching wider than he can hope to breach.

Frank wants to know what her voice sounds like when she’s reading, imagines it rough and low and liquid, water tumbling over rocks, churning and bubbling. He wants to know, wants to ask with an urgency that makes him nearly shake with impossible need. He doesn’t, doesn’t think he could, but it makes him ache, somewhere deep across his chest to realize that he may never know, that no one may ever know again, that these are the last few hours Laurel will spend alive, spend as part of the world, that nearly every movement she makes, every sigh and shift, every thought, may be the last time she makes that motion, the last time she thinks on that subject. It makes him want to memorize her, carve lines across his mind that are just images of Laurel, devote every last synapse and atom of brain power to her, to making her a part of him so deeply he’ll never forget.

Frank thinks he owes it to her, to memorize her, to make sure that Laurel’s last hours are recorded, are seen, thinks that she’s been given so little time that it’s a crime greater than any he’s committed not to salvage, treasure each and every one of them like space dust and diamonds. 

If she notices him watching, she doesn’t say anything, just continues to read, thoroughly engrossed in her task just as she had been that first day he saw her. Frank had wanted to warn her then, wanted to tell her all the horrors coming for her but he’d resisted, thought he was doing the right thing by not sinking the job despite his misgivings. Now, well, now Frank’s not sure he’d make the same choice again. If he knew then the impossible thing between them, the terrible thing that burns through his chest and into hers, the wanting, he’s not sure he wouldn't warn her, tell her to get as far away from Palm Beach as she could, run and run and never stop because if she stopped, he’d find her, hurt her.

She reads for minutes or hours or days, time all relative down in the dim, silent basement, existing vast and certain in the moments between breaths.

But then she pauses and looks up, eyes sparking in the dim half light and her scowl sending shadows across her face. “Were you in the army?”

“No,” he says slowly, drawing the syllable out in confusion, the word almost turning into a question.

Laurel nods, hums, then turns back to the book. “Ok,” she says softly as though the matter is somehow settled.

She’s silent for long minutes more before she looks back up again.

“A gang?”

“What?” he asks.

“Were you in a gang?” she repeats. “Is that why you’ve killed people?”

“No,” he tells her, shaking his head. “I wasn't in a gang.”

“Then why?” she asks, frowning deeply and her eyebrows knitted together like she’s been asked to solve some math problem she can’t hope to puzzle out, half the equation replaced by letters, x’s and y’s and z’s and no way to assign them values. 

Frank shrugs, wonders how much of the truth he should give her, how much of the truth he can give her. He settles for the simplest thing. “Because if I didn’t kill them, they would’ve killed me.”

“But why?” Laurel asks insistently. “Except for this disaster of a week, no one’s ever tried to kill me.”

Frank shrugs, all he can do, all he can give her. “Because they wanted to kill me.”

She growls, frustrated and glares across the distance between them, sharp and searching. “That's not an answer. That's the opposite of an answer.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he says, hitching his shoulders and scrubbing a hand across his beard. How can he explain to her the choices he’s been forced to make, to kill or be killed, not because violence was needed or necessary but because it was easy, because that was the quickest way to get what was wanted, money or power. “They were trying to kill me. So I killed them instead.”

“How can you not know why?” she demands fiercely, glare shooting through him as though he’s personally insulted her by not having determined the reason he was going to be killed. “How can you not want to know why?”

“Because when someone’s coming after you with a gun or a tire iron or their fists you don’t really stop to ask them why. You just want to make it out.”

“I want to know why,” Laurel tells him, voice bladed and low, like she’s got a knife clutched in her fist, creeping up behind him and ready to strike.

“I didn’t,” he says, shrugging, unsure how to explain to her that to him that violence was natural, expected. After a decade in juvie where violence was a daily occurrence, just another part of life, same as mealtimes and rain, he didn’t care about motivations, didn’t care about why someone was coming after him with a toothbrush shiv, he just cared about surviving.

Nothing had changed once he made it out into the real world, because he still ran in the same circles, with the same people for whom violence was as easy as breathing, the simplest way to solve problems, to get what they wanted. He doesn’t know how to explain that to her, to explain just how thoroughly he’s been ruined, corrupted by the things inside his brain, but the things he’s seen, the horrors he’s lived. She doesn’t understand, can’t understand and he doesn’t know how to tell her, doesn’t know how to give her the answers she craves.

Laurel’s frown deepens, heavy lines cutting across her mouth. Her shoulders hunch like she wants to cross her arms, angry, over her chest, prevented by the ties around her wrists. “What's wrong with you?” she demands. “Why the hell don’t you care about these things?”

“Its just not important,” he tries to explain. “Not to me.”

She returns back to the book, glaring down at the page, her body tense and tight.

“Does it matter why we kidnapped you?” he asks, not sure why he needs to press the issue, explain himself and make her understand, but he does, compelled to reach out to Laurel, bridge the gulf between them.

“I don’t know,” she admits finally, still glowering at him. “Yes, no. I don’t know.”

“None of that’s an answer Laurel,” he points out.

“It matters,” she growls. “Knowing the reason my life’s being ruined. I’d rather know.”

“But does it matter?” he asks again. “You want to know, but does it matter?”

She sighs, looks like she’s about to cry, her voice trembling. “No. Not it doesn’t matter.”

“I know you want explanations and answers,” he tells her, heart breaking for her. “I know you want things to make sense. But sometimes they just don’t.”

“Sometimes they just don’t,” she echoes, nodding, her eyes hollow and distant.

“You deserve better,” he whispers, hoping his words don’t carry across the room, don’t reach her ears.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been shit about updating yall, Spanish wifi has been letting me down, but i think things've been solved and i should be able to go back to regular posts...

If Laurel does hear him, she doesn’t give him any indication, lets nothing change in her expression, stiff and bristling with anger, holding herself reserved and at bay.

Laurel leans back against the wall, eyes slipping closed, head turned towards the ceiling, like she’s praying, lifting her eyes towards some far distant god.

“You want me to read more?” he asks her, grabbing another water bottle and taking a long swallow letting the cool water slide down his throat. “I think I can handle it again.”

“No,” she tells him without moving her head. “I don’t think I want to finish.”

“No?” he asks cautiously.

“No,” she repeats, still unmoving. “I think I’d rather leave it. If I do, it’ll be like, I dunno, like an ending of everything.”

“Wrapping everything up too neatly?”

She nods and Frank could swear he sees the start of a smile across her lips. “Like ghosts, you know. Unfinished business. I want unfinished business.”

Frank makes a low noise like a laugh, almost, but shot through with bitterness. “You want a reason to survive, something to come back to.”

Finally she looks down, meets Frank’s eyes. “Yes.”

He nods, exhales sharply like he’s been struck because once again Laurel is proving she’s something else entirely, her mind its own strange, complex, unknowable labyrinth, filled with desires and thoughts and emotions he can never begin to guess at, never begin to untangle. Frank gets it into his head that its best to finish the book, sort things out and wrap them into a nice little bow before tonight, before the end of all things, but Laurel, Laurel wants to act like everything is normal, like she’s going to live beyond midnight, continue to go about her life as though nothing is wrong, like nothing is going to change, no disaster creeping closer. She wants to rebel against what they both know is coming, resist it with everything within her, wants to cling to life, to normalcy, wants to never give in, never accept that she’s going to die. 

It makes him marvel at her strength, her defiance, makes the affection in his chest swell until he can barely breathe for it, how she digs in her heels and fights, teeth and nails and spitting rage against the things that are coming for her. It makes him ache too, with something that already feels like loss, because he’s going to lose her before he can ever really understand her, ever really know the fearsome things inside her, the things that driver her on.

“Have you ever wanted to kill someone,” she asks then, her words sounding like they’re coming from a million miles away, like she’s been thinking them for hours and only just choosing to put them into speech. “Not for any reason, just because?”

“Of course. Haven't you?”

“But have you?” she presses, ignoring his counter, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere to the left of him, distant and unblinking.

“No,” he tells her, because its true, technically. The thing that happened with his father, the thing that sent him to juvie, started him on this path that lead him here, to this place, with these burdens sinking him low, ended his entire future with one decision, well, he’s not sure how he can explain what that was, the decision that he made.

It all feels like another lifetime ago, distant and distorted with time and memory and the story that people have been telling him for over a decade, the story they’ve all convinced themselves is true, tried to convince Frank it true until he’s not sure of reality, not sure what happened that afternoon in the garage, not sure of his own mind, easier to accept the things that he’s been told, again and again, than to fight the current of inevitability.

He’s been told he meant to kill his father, and well, isn't that technically true, since the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania adjudicated as much as part of his trial, took a long hard look at his actions and determined that he had intended the accident, intended to kill his father with the car lift in the shop that afternoon. It had heard from him, from his father too, looked deep into Frank’s heart and had judged him a monster, judged him guilty, labeled him bad and sent him away where he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again, or no one that mattered anyway.

And Frank, well, Frank long ago stopped seeing the point in maintaining his own version of events, his own beliefs about what had happened, his own innocence about the accident. It didn’t matter what he’d intended, after all, didn’t matter if the lift had crushed his father because of Frank’s desire for that outcome or because of some terrible freak occurrence, the outcome was the same. His father got his spine crushed, his father would never walk again, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his days and Frank, well, Frank couldn’t take that back, and he knew, in the full depths of his heart, that it didn’t matter, didn’t matter a damn because it changed absolutely fucking nothing.

His father didn’t die, but that didn’t mean Frank hadn't intended it, intended to kill his father; that’s what the juvenile court system had decided anyway, and Frank still isn’t quite sure what that means, how to talk about what happened, how to talk about what he did or didn’t do that resulted in the accident and in his incarceration, the single decision, or non decision or freak fucking accidental twist of fate that changed everything, set him on this doomed and desolate path.

But he doesn’t know how to say all that to Laurel, doesn’t know how to tell her that his family believes one thing, his sealed juvenile record believes another and Frank, Frank has no idea anymore, no idea what the truth is, no idea if there’s anything left for him to believe.

Laurel turns to look at him finally, though her gaze remains clouded, like she’s staring at something a hundred yards behind him, some thing within the walls that’s holding her attention. “D’you think you could’ve though?”

“Killed someone? Just cause I wanted to?” he clarifies, not entirely sure what’s being asked of him, what strange problem is being worked out, muddled through in her mind, turned over and examined and weighed out until an answer emerges, clear and shining.

She nods.

“I dunno,” he tells her, because he doesn’t. He doesn’t know the truth, doesn't know what terrible things lurk inside his heart.

Its all been so jumbled by years of being told competing stories, listening to the conviction, the certainty of the various competing sides, the myriad arbiters of truth, that Frank can no longer even begin to untangle, to puzzle through what the truth really is, what he’d meant to do or not to or what had happened that afternoon. He can’t even remember anything before the shriek of metal and the sickening sound of a body being crushed, legs being snapped. His family is convinced of his goodness, Pennsylvania of his evil and Frank, well, Frank believes nothing and everything all at once.

“D’you think I could?” she asks, sudden fierceness coming over her, settling around her shoulders like she’s drawn strength from somewhere deep within herself, shoulders going rigid and haughty, almost royal.

“I dunno,” he says again. “I think you could do anything you set your mind to.”

“But do you think I’d ever want to?” she demands, like his answer is crucial, the key to everything, to unlocking the things that may lie hidden inside her heart, secret chambers and doors that only Frank knows how to open. “Do you think I have it in me?”

“Laurel,” he tells her softly. “I don’t know. I don’t think you can know. Not until it happens and you make a choice.”

“Ok,” she nods, sucking in a long breath until Frank thinks he sees a tremble in her limbs.

“If its any help,” he offers with a small smile, encouraging or understanding or something, he hopes, that can come close to bringing her comfort. “I think you’re brave and strong and if you wanted to, I don’t doubt you’d kill anyone who came your way.”

If anything, Laurel looks the opposite of pleased, of comforted, scowling deeply as she pulls her knees in close to her chest like she’s trying to make herself small, make herself disappear, retreat inside herself so that nothing of the outside world can touch her, hurt her.

“I…,” he stutters. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I say all the wrong things, don’t I?”

Her smile when it comes is thin and hollow. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I just, I wasn't prepared for you.”

“You weren't prepared for me?” she laughs, the sound cutting and mocking. “You’re damn right you weren't.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he tells her miserably, hating how she deliberately misunderstands him, uses his words to try and hurt him, wound him. He knows its because of how he’s hurt her, Laurel lashing out the only way she can, but it hurts to know she’s still so focused on resisting him, resisting them. It hurts that its so easy for her, while Frank, Frank couldn’t stand against her if he tried.

Except the look in her eyes, miserable and haunted, brimming with a thing he can only say is close to mourning, makes him know that she understands, understands exactly the thing between them, hates it even as she craves it. It hurts him almost as much as the thing itself hurts him, mystifying and irresistible.

“I don’t think you know what you meant,” she tells him with a frown.

“Maybe not,” he admits. “I dunno about much when it comes to you.”

She hums, though there’s something behind her eyes that has the look of pleasure. “Good,” she says firmly.

“You’ve got me figured out though, huh?”

She nods, the look in her eyes slinking down to her lips, cracking into a smile, wide enough he can see the hint of her teeth.

“What else d’you wish you’d figured out?” he asks. “What other stuff you wish you’d done?”

“My mom,” she says practically flinching away from him. “I wish I’d treated her better, tried to understand her.”

“Not that,” he tells her, trying to lighten the mood, lessen the sadness that surrounds her like a thick, impenetrable fog.

“Something like going to the moon, figuring out the ending to a show, gone to, I dunno, Zanzibar.”

“Zanzibar?” she repeats slowly, eyebrows raised and the barest hint of a laugh in her voice.

“Yeah,” he says, letting how own crooked grin sneak onto his face. “Why not?”

“You even know where Zanzibar is?” she asks, and Frank can’t quite tell whether she’s teasing him or trying to be mean, hurtful.

“They’re islands off the coast of Tanzania,” he counters. “An archipelago I think.”

Laurel hums, eyebrows twitching in something like surprise.

“What?” he asks, edged and mocking. “You think I’m the kinda guy who doesn’t know where Zanzibar is?”

She shrugs, face neutral. “Wouldn't have put it past you.”

“Maybe you don’t have me quite so figured out then huh?”

“Maybe not,” Laurel says with another shrug.

“So,” he asks again. “What’d you wish you got to do? If everything’s ending tonight?”

“Isn't that the same thing as the twenty four hour fantasy?”

“No way,” he assures her. “I mean this is things like finding out aliens exist, watching every single episode of the Simpsons in order. Totally different.”

“I wish I’d graduated high school, gotten out of Florida,” she tells him with a scowl. “I wish I’d been able to see Nina Simone perform live. I wish I’d blown my trust fund on pyramid schemes and horse racing.”

“Horse racing?” he smirks. “Not poker?”

“Too much skill in poker,” she explains. “I want something that’d be blind luck, that’d be pretty much guaranteed to lose me all my money.”

“Could give it to charity, you know,” he tells her. “Hell, just give it all to me.”

“Could do,” she agrees with a little sigh, eyebrows pulling together. “But I want him to know I didn’t give a shit, that I didn’t want anything to do with his money.”

“Could just burn it,” he points out with a laugh. “Make the same point. Eat some $1000 s'mores or something.”

Laurel laughs, throws her head back with the force of it. “$1000 s’mores. Think I might try that actually. If I ever get outta here.”

“You gonna throw me an invite?” he asks her. “It was my idea after all. And I love s’mores.”

“Everyone loves s’mores,” she tells him rolling her eyes.

“Didn’t say I was anything special,” he shrugs. “But I still want an invite.”

She hums softly. “Only if you agree to sail with me to Cuba.”

“Cuba?” he says carefully, unwilling to draw any attention to Laurel’s offer, her casual desire to have him accompany her, as though the offer is nothing, not staggering and weighty and brings them to a new level of understanding, intimacy. He doesn't want to point out what she’s just given him, the offer she’s just made, worried that she’s going to take it back, balk when she realizes what she’s done, what she’s handed him. “Not anywhere closer?”

Laurel shakes her head, eyes falling to her hands, still clasped in her lap, shy smile cracking across her lips. “No, just Cuba. Its no fun to sail to Bimini.”

“You know,” he tells her, still smirking. “Usually people sail from Cuba.”

“I’ll settle for the Bahamas if you’re using your veto,” she says with a quick little laugh, eyes still fixed on the floor.

“Didn’t know I got a veto,” Frank says, grinning despite himself because suddenly they’ve become a team, confidants and he’s not sure what he can do to avoid ruining everything, sabotaging their sudden, hesitant partnership with too much doubt, too many questions.

“Course,” Laurel says with a too casual shrug. “You ever sail? I’m gonna be putting you to work. Least I can do is let you have a veto.”

“Alright,” he tells her, grin slanting wide. “Bahamas it is.”

“Cool,” she nods though her jaw remains tight like she’s fighting off the impulse to anger still, always. 

“Would it uninvited me if I asked why?” he asks.

She shrugs. “We’ll find one of the uninhabited islands and colonize it.”

“Colonize?” he repeats.

Laurel simply nods.

“I think the Bahamas are all pretty securely their own country.”

“No one’ll notice if we take one,” she points out. “A small one. Build a treehouse.”

“I’m still not quite seeing the bigger picture here,” he confesses, hoping that admitting to his ignorance won’t sink the offer she’s extended, won’t sink whatever plans she’s allowed herself to expand to include Frank.

“There isn't one,” she explains. “I just want to see if I can.”

“Ah,” Frank says, nodding. “This is a just because plan.”

He’s not sure what he was expecting, not sure what kind of explanation he’d been hoping to get from her, but when it comes he can see that it’s the only thing that really makes sense. Because here, right now, in this instant, all Laurel cares about is getting back the things she doesn’t have, power and control and freedom. Of course she’d want to go sail somewhere over the horizon, find some isolated island and seclude herself there, surround herself with the wind and the sky and the waves, be the only one to decide where she goes and what she does. 

It makes her offer to have him along, even if its purely, utterly hypothetical, even if there’s not a single universe in which it will ever come to pass, that much weightier, more profound. He doesn’t know if she realizes the true impact of the offer she’s made him, realize what she’s asked of him, but Frank does, can see it like he’s suddenly been handed the code to untangle her, understand the language within her. Whatever else she thinks of him, whatever explosive combination of hate and affection and caution, she’s offered him a place in her fantasy, offered to have Frank come along with her to Cuba or the Bahamas or wherever, even allowed him some measure of control, impact on this journey that yes, is pure fiction, but its fiction based in the reality of Laurel’s feelings about him, about other people. 

He thinks that whatever else simmers between them, placid on the surface but churning and ready to boil over at any moment, he thinks, knows it matters that she’s decided to let him come with her, knows it means she feels it too, the thing between them, knows its something she doesn’t want to fight, doesn’t hate or resent or seek to destroy. He knows too, that whatever else there may be, whatever other things are created or destroyed in this basement, he knows it means she trusts him, not to hurt her, not to betray her, means that she trusts he’ll give her the space, the freedom she needs, that he won’t try wrest away her control, keep her a prisoner even out in the world. 

It makes him sad too, in a way that makes him grieve for things that have not yet happened, for things that will never happen, never could have possibly come to pass, grieving for strange constellations of possibilities that will be wiped away, doors that he has never seen and isn't sure even exist closing to him, forever, before he even has a chance to mourn the things they could mean. It makes the ache within him impossible to bear, knowing that none of this will ever come to pass, none of this will ever be anything more than a fantasy because Laurel is never, ever leaving going to leave the basement, that all the things that could have been between them, all the ways they could have known each other, all the ways they could build this bonfire between them, adding wood and gasoline and coals, until its strong and raging and unconquerable, none of that will ever happen because these are the cards they have been dealt, and here is where things end.

“Well,” Frank tells her, conquering the look of grief on his face, smoothing over his features until he hopes she can’t see any of it on his face, can’t read the things he mourns, the sharp hollow in his chest. “It’s a good thing you’re letting me tag along. I love a good just because plan.”

“I’m letting you tag along because you owe me,” she insists, her voice like a blade pressed against his Adam’s apple, low and sharp and cold, all warmth vanishing from her words, her expression going blank, like she’s retreating behind thick walls because she cant bring herself to face the things she feels.

“That’s fine,” he assures her, grinning wryly. He wants to placate her somehow, convince Laurel that she can let herself ease her white knuckled grip on her emotions around him, feel some flickering thing like affection, tentative and fragile, doesn’t have to hold herself at bay against him, careful and cautious that to relax even an inch, hand him any piece of herself will be disaster. He wants to assure her, convince her, swear to her on his own life that he won’t hurt her, that he knows, with everything inside him, it would be like hurting himself. Frank just doesn’t have the words, doesn’t have the language inside himself to do that, to step past all her fears and bristling defenses, conquer them with anything but more warfare. He lives his life as a war, thinks like war, strategies and battle plans and armaments against attack, counters and feints and ever growing defenses, doesn’t know if he has it in himself to lay down his own guns, his own swords and walk forward to her, unarmed and at her mercy. But he wants to, oh, how he wants to, because he knows that’s the only way she’ll meet him, the only way she’ll receive his surrender. “Don’t care why I get an invite, just pleased I do.”

Laurel hums softly, eyes sinking back to her hands. “Maybe it’s good I’m probably getting killed,” she tells him, voice high and reedy so that he has to shift forward, strain to hear her. “I don’t know how I could go back out there, talk to anyone, act like anything’s normal.”

“I think you’d have to get used to it again,” he assures her. He doesn’t want to admit to her he’s been out two years now and he’s still not fully adjusted, still not fully used to the real world, wholly convinced it’s not all a dream he’ll soon wake up from. He can’t tell her about how he’s never felt normal, not once since he’s been out, always felt like he’s wearing a disguise, wearing someone’s face over his own, pretending he’s normal, boring, pretending he’s not something else, something different, pretending his skin doesn’t crawl like it doesn’t fit him quite right, like the world itself doesn’t fit him quite right. Or, more likely, that Frank doesn’t fit in the world anymore, doesn’t have a place where he belongs anymore. He doesn’t want to tell her that some things, some experiences change you, so completely and so fundamentally that not even the world itself can remain the same. He wants to tell her the truth, always, but in this, he wants her to live in ignorance just a few hours more. He’s not sure it will matter much anyway, remains certain that she’ll never leave the basement alive, so Frank keeps his mouth shuts, chokes on the lie even as he hopes it brings her some measure of comfort, even though she already knows the truth, can feel it in her bones. “But you would. It’d be easy to forget about all this, go back to normal after a while.”

Laurel shakes her head, frowns at him like she can sense he’s not being truthful with her, trying to make her feel better with pleasant lies. Her words fierce, weighty, like they’re bricks, bombs she’s lobbing at his skin, forcing him to understand, forcing him to confront the truth of who she’s become, who he’s made her become. “No. I don’t think normal after this can look anything like normal before.”

“You’ll forget about this,” he promises. “Forget about everything, even your arm. Things’ll go back to normal.”

“No,” she says again, insistent and harsh. “How am I supposed to go to a party again, relax enough to go out with my friends? How can I go back to school, go back to sitting in Algebra like everything’s fine? How am I ever going to want to run again?”

“Because you’re strong,” he tells her, getting to his feet and crossing the room to sit, tentatively beside her, careful not to get too close, careful not to touch her because Laurel is a wild animal, unbroken and easily startled, ready to lash out at him.

“Because you’re tough and stubborn and you’re not going to let anything beat you. You’re gonna make things go back to normal just out of spite.”

She lets out a small, huffing laugh, toeing the line somewhere between bitter and pleased, some strange liminal space he can’t really puzzle out prickly sharp and yet warm and soft and sweet. He sees her roll her eyes too, full of weary affection.

“I’d like to,” she says reluctantly after a moment, watching him from the corner of her eyes like he too is some dangerous untrained animal. They are cautious, wary around each other, two creatures guarding their own hearts, ignoring the knives they clench in their own fists, ignoring the blood pouring from the other, certain, only that they will be hurt if they even fractionally let down their guard, to thaw. “But I think that’s probably just wishful thinking. I think there are some things you can’t come back from, no matter what.”

“I think if its possible,” he tells her. “You’ll pull it off.”

And then things shift between them again, and the flame is put to the powder and he can feel Laurel stiffen beside him, rigid with tense anger. “Maybe I should be different though. Maybe its not right to come back the same person.”

“You can do whatever you want,” he assures her, watching the nervous twitch to her fingers, tapping out a rhythm on her thigh with the fingertips of her uninjured hand. Frank wants to reach out, take her hand in his, slip his thumb across her knuckles, take away the hesitant, fluttering energy that reads to him like fear, like worry, like grief. “If you want to be the same, you should be.”

“I’m not,” she says firmly. “I know I’m not the same person. And I don’t want to be.”

“No?”

“No,” she says again, teeth worrying her bottom lip, uncertain and faltering. “There are some things that should change me, that I should let change me.”

“Like running away to the Bahamas?” he asks, knocking his shoulder gently into hers, careful not to jar her injured collarbone, careful not to cause her anymore pain than he already has. He doesn’t know if it’s possible to stay the same, hopes it is, hopes for Laurel’s sake it is, regardless of the things she’s saying. When he was sent away, he couldn’t help but change, sent away as a boy of eleven, not released until nearly a decade later. It was impossible to remain stagnant no matter how much he may have wanted to, may have wanted to resist the changes juvie had on him, stay the same small, chattering boy. He doesn’t know if he would have chosen to remain the same had anyone made the offer, but he’s certain he would have given pause, thought harder about it than Laurel seems to be, simply accepting that this terrible thing has altered her, deeply, fundamentally, caused changes to her very marrow, right down to her cells.

“Better than the circus, right?” she says with a shrug, suddenly allowing herself to smile, small and sad, but still, a smile.

“Definitely,” he agrees. “Clowns kinda freak me out.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “When I was little my older brother used to tell me he’d sell me to the circus if I was bad. Told me that all I’d be good for was getting eaten by the clowns.”

Laurel laughs. “All older brothers must say that,” she tells him. “Mine pulled that out a few times.”

“Doesn’t help that he’s...well, he’s basically a semi-professional seasonal clown,” Frank says, unsure how to describe the new year’s brigade his brother’s a part of, unwilling to describe him as a mummer lest he give Laurel the obvious connection that he’s from Philly, but not sure how else to describe the way his brother dresses up, paints his face every New Year’s day, parades through the streets with a case of beer and a saxophone he only barely knows how to play. Seasonal semi-professional clown remains the best he can do, the only way to describe what his brother does, his life as what is basically a clown without making it too obvious to her, unsure why he’s even telling her about his family other than that he wants to, feels like he owes it to her to give her what he can, put them on equal footing somehow. He feels like its only fair that he open himself up to her, drop some of his defenses because he’s always been the one battering at her walls, making her weak, feels like he owes her the chance to hurt him if she feels like it, the chance to learn something about him and choose to use it for good or for evil. He feels compelled to trust her with a few hesitant details, offering them to her like precious jewels, ready to see what it gets him, whether his trust will come back to burn him, bite him or be repaid somehow by offerings of her own.

“I dunno what that means, but it sounds terrifying,” Laurel agrees with a hesitant little laugh, like she can’t decide whether she should be laughing at all, whether she wants to open herself up to him, let go of some of the iron grip she keeps on her emotions. “Why would he want to be a clown?”

“Partly to creep me out,” Frank says with his own sheepish laugh. “And partly because he uses it as an excuse to hang with his buddies and get shitfaced.”

“He can’t do that without the clown makeup?” she asks as a little note of skepticism enters her words.

“He can’t drink without his old lady’s permission,” Frank corrects. “He’s got three kids, so he needs to give her good reason for it.”

“I’m clearly missing something here,” Laurel says, eyebrows still raised. “Drinking in clown makeup seems the opposite of what I’d want someone to do with their spare time.”

Frank chuckles as he flashes her a crooked grin. “Hey, I try not to judge people’s kinks.”

She laughs, almost a snort, and glances away like she’s hoping he hasn’t heard, won’t notice the grin slipping across her lips, embarrassed by her own reaction.

“You got a clown kink you're not telling anyone about?” he teases with a smirk.

Laurel rolls her eyes again. “Definitely not.”

“I bet you’ve got some kinda strange one though,” he blurts out before he realizes exactly how bad an idea it is to talk to Laurel about sex, about any of the kinks that might be floating around in her head, a bad idea for Frank to let himself think about Laurel and sex and kinks and desire, a path he knows he shouldn't stray down but which calls to him, a siren song inviting him to nothing but disaster.

Laurel smirks then, wide and feral and dangerous. “If I get outta here, you might just get to find out.”

He tries to say something, take it all back, just winds up making a noise that sounds a little too much like he’s choking to be able to pass off as nothing, as just a cough.

Her grin creeps wider, brimming with victory. “But I gotta say Lars, you can barely handle me now, how’re you gonna handle my kinks.”

“That a challenge?” he asks, swallowing thickly trying to keep his voice steady, keep it from shaking. He succeeds at that, but his words come out a little too high, a little too breathy and he can tell by the slight widening of her eyes that she hears it, the tell in his throat, the tell that betrays his mind.

Laurel just shrugs, flashes him a grin that tastes like defeat and says nothing more, deciding not to press her victory further.

But Frank well, he’s always been one to find himself in a hole, look around and keep digging, hoping to come on out the other side rather than just stop, figure an easier way out. So Frank, well, he presses forward, embraces his total defeat, embraces the way he’s never had anything approaching a chance of victory with Laurel, not when she plows through his defenses like they’re made of tissue paper, not when he can think of nothing he’d rather do than surrender to her, lay his weapons down at her feet and submit to her.

“If you get outta here, what, you’re gonna leave your number?”

Her eyes narrow but he can see her play it off, shrug and bowl past the places where he might have hurt her. Instead, she just shrugs. “You know how to find me. Obviously. So find me.”

Frank’s breath hitches again, sharp and sour in his throat. “I…if you get out of here, you really want me tracking you down again?”

Laurel laughs, quick and breathy, rolls her eyes in something dripping with affection. “Well don’t chase me down when I’m running and Tase me, but yeah. Yeah, gimme a call, send me a postcard or something.”

“Why?” he gasps out, the doubt and fear and loathing mixing with his confusion to leave him lost, leave him grasping for some explanation, something that can help him make sense of why Laurel would ever want to know him after this, ever want to see him or hear from him again, why she’d want to do anything other than convince herself he was dead in a shallow grave somewhere.

“Why not?” she asks as her shoulders roll with a shrug. “You’re a terrible kidnapper but you’re not a terrible person. I don’t think so at least. And I like you. I know that’s stupid, but I do. So I want to see you again. If you want to see me.”

“I…”

“That’s ok,” Laurel says, face suddenly closing off, turning into a blank mask, no emotions visible behind her eyes. “You don’t have to.”

“No,” he tells her quickly. “I want to. I do. I just don’t know why you do.”

“Because I do,” she replies, softening slightly. “Because I’m stupid, and weak, but I do. I wish it made sense.”

“Is this the kind of thing that ever makes sense?”

“No,” Laurel agrees shaking her head. “Not a damn thing about this situation makes sense. But I’ve never been big on denying the things I feel, or questioning them just cause it'd be easier to pretend I feel some other way.”

“How do you not hate me?” Frank asks. “How do you not wish you’d never see me again?”

“I do,” she tells him with a shrug, instantly dismissing any doubts, any second guesses, simply certain of her thoughts, of the things moving through her heart, as steady and true as pumping blood. “Of course I do. But I think I like you more. You’re a coward, and you’re stupidly, blindly loyal but you’re not cruel. You don’t want to hurt me and that counts for something.”

“How can that count for anything?” he asks before he can stop himself, think through how he shouldn't question her, the things she feels, how he shouldn't do anything to make her reconsider her thoughts, convince her that she should hate him when, against all odds, against all rationality, she doesn’t.

“Because it does,” she says as though its that simple, as though there’s no other explanation needed. “Because the past however many days have been fucking horrible and you're the only decent thing, the only thing that doesn’t make me want to just give up and let you kill me.”

“I’m not a good guy,” he tells her, guilt tightening his throat. “I’d just keep letting you down, disappointing you. Worse, I’m gonna hurt you.”

“Then you hurt me,” she shrugs, jaw tight, like she’s seconds away from calling him a coward. “Or I hurt you. I’m willing to risk it.”

“Alright,” he tells her, knowing how little it will likely matter, how nearly certain her death is, only a few hours away now, how easy it would be to lie to her, pretend that everything would be fine, easy between them. But he can’t give her that, can’t offer her anything but the truth, anything but crumbs, can’t promise anything but a chance. “You make it through this, I’ll shoot you a postcard. See what it gets us.”

She smiles, tiny and shy, glances away from him to hide how pleased she is with his assent. “Maybe we can be pen pals.”

He laughs, knocks his shoulder against hers. “That’d be cool. Write me about school and college and stuff. Lemme know if Harvard takes you.”

“Just don’t write me about your crimes,” she tells him with a little laugh.

“Just don’t tell your dad where you met me,” Frank counters.

Laurel rolls her eyes, scoffs softly. “I doubt he’d notice at all.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s gonna be watching you like a hawk after this,” he tells her, reaching out, finally, finally, and taking her hand in his. Its like a craving, insatiable, unending, just a constant desire to be near her, touching her, a wanting he can’t deny himself.

“Then you don’t know shit about my dad,” Laurel says stiffly, though she doesn’t pull her hand away, just threads her fingers through his, tightens her fingers over his.

“I don’t,” he agrees slowly, cautiously. “But he’s probably gonna be pretty protective of you from here on out. Not wanting to risk this again, even if just to avoid getting extorted.”

“Maybe you do know my dad,” she tells him grimly. “Losing money is the only thing that pisses him off.”

“Seems like it,” Frank allows, because there’s god, only a handful of hours left now, time slipping away from them with every heartbeat, closer and closer to the moment when Laurel’s stops, closer and closer to her terrible tragic end because her father cared more about his money than his own daughter, abandoned her to whatever awful fate Martin had in store for her.

Laurel must have the same thought because she slips her body against him, weighty and soft. “How much time do I have?”

“Till midnight?” he asks softly.

She nods against his shoulder, cheek pressing into his skin.

“Little more than eight hours,” he tells her, throat tightening because it hurts, hurts him so bad every time he thinks about what he knows is happening, has already been set in motion with nothing, no one to stop it.

“So you gotta leave in what, an hour? Two?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

She sighs. “I’ll be sad to see you go.”

“I’ll come down,” Frank vows, stomach sinking because he’s got hardly any time left with her, mere moments left with this girl who fascinates him and sinks her hooks deep in his skin and who he can’t get out of his head, mere moments to try and figure out what it is that moves between them like lightning. “I promised you I’d be there.”

“I know.”

“I’m not gonna leave you alone.”

“I know,” she says again, thumb slipping over his. “I trust you.”

“You need anything before I go up again?” he asks her, slipping his hand out of hers and hooking his arm around her shoulders, tugging her closer to him.

Laurel shakes her head, taking his free hand in hers like she too can’t be away from him for too long, like she always wants to feel his skin against hers, craving it, needing it like a plant chasing the sunlight. “Just you.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because even if you largely ignore the kidnapping itself, things can't ever just go smoothly for these two in the angst world they live in...

He picks up the book soon after that because he can see, even in profile, the haunted look that moves across her eyes, creeps into them like its setting up shop, making a permanent home in her gaze.

Frank wants to do something to put a stop to that slow, creeping colonization, delay it at least, keep Laurel’s mind from focusing on the bad things waiting in the wings, the almost certain future that’s really no future at all, truncated, amputated.

He’s not sure how successful he can be, barely hears his own words as he reads, barely comprehends the sounds spilling from his lips, but he hopes, and she doesn’t tell him to stop, so he keeps on, desperate that Laurel is not merely allowing him to continue because she thinks it benefits him, keeps him calm and the rising panic at bay.

It must do something, stop the worst of the creeping dread because her body remains loose and liquid against his, none of the stiff, tense panic he’s come to expect from the damned, those who know or suspect that death stalks their heels, who must simply wait for disaster like waiting for a train. Instead, she slips down his body, lets her head slide into his lap, her legs curled up tight against her chest, and her bound hands idly slipping across his knee, tracing the curve of his kneecap.

He tenses as she does, his whole body taut and quivering like a wire, bristling with electricity. Laurel turns her eyes to him, curious at his reaction, but lets them drop once she realizes he’s not going to do anything else, going to continue to let her lie against him. He places one hand over hers on his knee, hooking their thumbs together until Laurel turns her hand over, taking her bound and broken limb with her with only a little sigh of discomfort, offers Frank her hand, palm up.

He takes her hand, of course, dropping the book beside him so he can twine their fingers together and slip his thumb over the back of hers.

Frank’s other hand hovers, uncertain, above her, unsure of what to do, unsure of whether he can touch her, if she’ll allow the touch or will reject it utterly. But he knows there’s only a few hours left, less, if he’s counting the time he’ll actually be with her, be alone with her and he can’t afford to doubt himself, doubt his wants now, he doesn’t have time to shy away from what he thinks Laurel wants too, knows he must simply take the risk and face the consequences if he’s wrong.

So he lets his hand slip into her hair, card through the impossibly soft strands as his fingertips catch lightly against her scalp once and then again in long slow strokes.

Laurel sighs, hums at the passes of his fingers, if anything her body going even more boneless, eyes slipping closed in what he has to tell himself is pleasure, comfort.

“Sometimes,” she says, voice slow and thick like she’s well on her way to falling asleep, though he can tell from the cadence of her breathing, from the fumbling movements of her fingers that she’s nowhere near sleep. “Sometimes you’re the only thing that keeps me from being so angry I can’t breathe.”

“I don’t want you to be angry,” he tells her, watching the beginnings of tears spring to her eye. “But maybe that’s the best way to feel.”

“I’m not afraid,” she says, a ripple of anger creeping into her voice, her eyes cracking open to stare at him, her gaze suddenly cold. “I’m not scared of dying. It might be a relief.”

“Don’t say that,” he tells her softly, fingers stumbling in their path across her skull.

“I’ll say whatever I want,” she tells him, voice going sharp. “I think I’ve earned that.”

He nods. “You have, but its not certain yet. There’s still time for things to work out.”

“And then what?” she asks. “I go home, try to go back to normal?”

“Then you do something,” he tells her, an edge he can’t help murmuring below words. He bristles, instinctively at her words, at the hopelessness, the defeat lingering underneath the things she says, unwilling, unable to contemplate a world without Laurel in it, refusing to let her give up, give in while any other option exists. “Anything. Whatever you want. Whatever you decide’s better than nothing, better than being dead.”

“That’s the thing,” she says, turning slightly so she can meet his eyes, hissing as she rolls over, jars her injured arm, the blood draining from her face as she braces herself against the pain. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

“Well I don’t recommend experimenting to find out,” he says, tries to go for teasing, knows he fails, know she recognizes the scowl on his face has no affection in it.

“I don’t think I’m being given much of a choice,” she shrugs, shoulders hitching in a way that allows her to roll back onto her side, shield her eyes from him, looking again like he’s said something, done something that’s disappointed her, like she’s trying to retreat deep inside her own mind because she can no longer trust Frank.

Except she doesn’t move, doesn’t roll away or sit up or do anything to actually retreat from him, her body laying loose and warm against him, her head still lying soft in his lap, like her words are all the point she needs to make that she’s furious at him.

“But don’t invite the bad things in,” he tells her, trying to smile. His mom always told him that, not to go courting disaster, not to think to hard on the bad things lest he attract them, draw them out like a magnet, like poison being sucked from a wound. He hadn’t really known what she’d meant until he’d wound up behind bars where even glancing at someone the wrong way, looking like he had ill intentions can make those thoughts a reality, can invite the danger in, turn people’s focus to him. And now, well, now he tries not to linger on the bad things that could happen, tries not to let the danger become a part of him.

And Laurel, well, Laurel hasn't quite learned that lesson yet, or has and doesn’t care, wants to stand, angry and defiant and immovable, and scream out into the darkness, daring those same terrible things to come find her, come get her, refusing to cower from them.

“Are you superstitious, Lars?” she asks, her voice light but with a note of something nasty, something mocking cutting through her voice, like she’s looking for an excuse to lash out at him, to hurt him. “Because nothing I say or do is going to change whether those bad things happen.”

“It’s just something my Ma always told me,” Frank explains, willing to give her that, that little morsel of truth, that little hint as to who he is, who he really is when he’s out in the world and not here in this strange, choking limbo. “Think she just wanted to turn me into an optimist.”

Laurel hums, walking her fingers along the inside of his wrist. “Seems to’ve worked.”

He chuckles, half at the brush of her fingers, half at her pronouncement. “She’ll be pleased to hear that,” he tells her. “She’s always hoping she did something right with me.”

“What,” she teases now, the vicious edge gone from her voice and laughter instead rippling through her words like drops of water. “She doesn’t approve of you bring a criminal mastermind?”

He has half a mind of bristle, to give in to the impulse to get angry, injured, but resists, tells himself she isn't trying to be mean, isn't trying to hurt him, lets the anger slide from his skin. “She thinks I’m a welder. Or a welder’s apprentice, I guess.”

“A welder?” Laurel asks skeptically, as Frank watches her eyebrows climb.

He nods, smirking. “A welder.”

She laughs, soft and light. “I really can’t see you as a welder.”

“Good thing you ain't my Ma then,” he teases, grin perfectly, hopelessly crooked, pleased beyond words that he seems to have succeeded at distracting her, turning her mind from the things that have yet to come to pass.

“Good thing,” Laurel agrees, rolling her eyes. “I don’t think any of this would work if I was.”

“No,” he chuckles. “It definitely wouldn't.”

She rolls her eyes again, heavy with affection, but pulls silence around her like a cloak, says nothing more except for the occasional sigh that slips past her lips as Frank’s fingers continue to slip across her scalp.

“You’d like my Ma,” he blurts out without thinking. “She’d like you too.”

“Yeah?” Laurel hums, eyes slipping closed, seeming not to notice the way Frank’s whole body has suddenly tensed, with fear, panic, loathing, panicking at all the things his words can mean, all the things he didn’t mean to say, imply.

Frank nods. “You’re both tough. Don’t take any shit, from me especially. She’d like that about you.”

“Isn't it a bit early to be taking your hostages home to meet the folks?” she jokes, though her eyes remain closed.

“Hey, we’re pen pals now,” he tells her. “You can tell her all about how we met at welding school.”

Laurel raises her eyes to his, shifting a few inches but he still sees her eyes narrow in pain. “Does welding school exist?”

Frank shrugs as he laughs. “No idea. But she’ll buy it.”

“I look even less like a welder than you do,” she tells him, fingers tightening around his.

“Hey, Ms. Feminism,” Frank chides. “Don’t be sexist. Girls can be welders too.”

“I’m barely old enough to have dropped out, got my GED,” she points out.

He shrugs. “Lie.”

“Alright,” she chuckles. “If I ever meet her I’ll totally lie to your mom for you. Pretend we know each other from welding school.”

“Cool,” he tells her, fingers combing long tracks through the silky soft strands of her hair. “She’ll stuff you full of pasta and chicken parm till you can’t see straight. Fatten you up.”

“You really are Italian,” she hums. “Bet your real name is like Luigi or something. Mario.”

Frank snorts. “Are the only Italian names you know from Mario Brothers?”

She tightens her fingers around his, almost painfully, sharp like she’s trying to punish him though she lets out a quick little laugh. “Oh like you’d be any better with Latin names.”

“I absolutely would,” he tells her. “Because I have to be. No one’s made a video game with Latino characters yet.”

Laurel smirks as she lets out a little huffing laugh. “You’re just mad no one’s making it easy for you.”

“I don’t need anyone to make it easy. I can give you half a dozen names off the top of my head. Because I don’t need video games.”

“Wasn't Mario a welder?” she asks, ignoring him.

Frank laughs, rolls his eyes. “Plumber, kid. He was a plumber.”

“Right,” Laurel agrees slowly, drawing out the syllable. “That’s the deal with the pipes everywhere.”

“Wait, did you seriously not know that?”

She shrugs, a little squirming thing, a quick shiver of her body. “It wasn't really relevant when I was squishing mushroom and turtles.”

“But that’s like the basis of Mario’s appeal,” he tells her with a laugh as she twists her head, looks up at him, blinking slowly. “Mild mannered plumber gets transported to the game, gets tasked with rescuing the princess, beating up Bowser. Unexpected hero or whatever. It’s a classic story.”

“Mario’s a classic story?” Laurel asks him skeptically, eyebrows lifting, her blue grey eyes dancing with laughter.

He nods emphatically, curling a strand of hair around the shell of Laurel’s ear, watching her shiver at his touch. “Definitely. He’s an everyman. Totally classic hero’s journey. Plus, there aren’t too many Italian heroes to choose from.”

She snorts. “Rocky. Fonzie. Uh, Danny Zuko. Michael Corleone if you’re being generous.”

“Anti-hero,” Frank corrects, swallowing down the impulse to talk about Rocky Balboa, hero to every Italian kid from Philly, let her know how much Rocky shaped his childhood, always cautious not to give away too much about his life, about who he is when he’s not in this basement.

“Doesn’t matter,” she tells him, giving him a small smile, half exasperated. “Still counts.”

“Suppose it does,” he agrees.

“Snooki and Jwoww,” she continues with a wicked little smile.

“Hey,” Frank sputters, hand stopping his tracks through her hair. “Neither of them are actually Italian, they just wish they were.”

“You sure you’e not making that up cause you don’t want to admit they give Italians a bad name?”

“You willing to own Cheech and Chong?” he counters, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“First of all, how old are you? Sixty?” Laurel teases him with a wicked grin, the look in her eyes sharp and challenging. “Second, only Cheech is Mexican. But yeah, he’s awesome. I’ll own just about every Mexican character outside of Speedy Gonzalez.”

Frank sucks in a slow breath. “Yeah, that’s a bad one.”

“So don’t get pissed about Jersey Shore when there’s way shittier representations of Mexicans just about everywhere you look.”

He rolls his eyes, sighs heavily. “Fine, fine. You win.”

Laurel’s grin is pleased and bristling with victory. “Course I do.”

“But still,” he tells her. “Snooki and Jwwow are pretty bad Italians.”

“And Rocky’s a good one. Danny Zuko’s even better,” she points out, grinning up at him, laughter rippling across her words. “Girls love Danny Zuko.”

Frank rolls his eyes, light and teasing. “Is that what does it for you? Young John Travolta?”

“Sure,” she shrugs. “Clearly I’m a sucker for slicked hair and shit eating grins.”

“Good to know you’ve got a type,” he laughs.

“Beard’s an improvement on Danny Zuko though.”

“Yeah?”

Her grin slips wider as she blushes pink across her cheeks to the tips of her ears.

“Oh c’mon,” he chuckles, pleased and a little cocky at her embarrassment, caught unable to hide how much she likes him, how intensely the connection between them tugs at her. “It won’t kill you to admit it.”

Laurel squirms a little, still uncomfortable and embarrassed though a grin sneaks across her lips, curls them up and Frank finds himself returning the smile, unable to resist, unable to resist her, wanting her as she wants him.

“You got a facial hair thing, don’t you?” he continues to tease, loving, hopelessly, the way her nose scrunches, her eyes crinkle at the corners as she tries to keep the smile from her face. “That’s your kink I bet.”

“That is not my kink,” she insists with a scowl, though he has to laugh at how unconvincing she sounds.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” he laughs.

“Don’t then,” she says, a fierceness moving across her words, haughty and challenging and for the first time in a long time, he’s reminded that she’s a rich girl, through and through, used to getting her way, used to people listening to her. Frank thinks he ought to mind, ought to bristle at the dismissiveness in her voice, lacing through her tone, but he doesn’t. He likes that she thinks she can boss him around, ignore him, challenges him, likes that there’s nothing like fear in her, just comfort and confidence. He thinks, given half a chance, he’d always let her be right, would be perfectly content to live in a world where he just accepted her word as law, gave into her every command. “I don’t care. Its true though.”

Frank huffs out a laugh again, fingers leaving the tangles of her hair and trailing down her arm, over the sickening jut of her broken collarbone, ghosting against the curve of her shoulder, down to her elbow and back up. He can feel her flinch as his fingers begin their path, relax into his touch as she realizes he’s not going to hurt her.

“You getting used to the pain any?” he asks her softly, fingers walking feather light patterns into her skin. “I’m sorry, I should've offered you something as soon as I came back down.”

Laurel shakes her head slightly and he can feel the sudden bristle in her spine, though its almost like she lacks the energy, the will to do anything about it, to get angry at him for his stupid, insensitive question. “I’m not used to it, but I’m, I dunno, numb to it maybe. I’m living with it.”

“I should've stopped him,” Frank tells her, the guilt he’s kept at bay suddenly eating a hole though his chest, heart ready to tumble from his rib cage.

She nods again, her voice hollow. “You should've. But you didn’t.”

“Because I’m a coward,” he finishes for her, because at this point, Laurel doesn’t have to say it, he knows, knows deep in his marrow what he is, what he’s always been, what he’ll always be. He’s a loyal dog and try as he might, he can’t disobey his masters.

“You're something,” she agrees slowly. “You’re loyal to a fault.”

“Where I come that’s a good thing, people would kill for loyalty,” he says though he’s not sure why, because that loyalty, even when he knows its wrong, even when he knows he’s choosing the wrong path, is getting Laurel killed, getting her bones snapped and sending bruises all along her side.

“Mine too,” she agrees with a little hum that edges somewhere into a growl. “But loyalty’s just as bad as anything else when you take it to an extreme.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” he presses. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, doesn’t know if he’s making the right choices, following the correct path. He’s hated nearly everything Martin’s done since this job started, but that doesn’t mean shit when he doesn’t do anything about it, doesn’t try and stop the other man, doesn’t call him out. But Frank’s just a hired gun and his word means next to nothing and he knows that anything he says will just make things worse, draw attention where he wants Martin to just ignore things. And yet, whatever his reasons, it still makes him a coward, still makes him stupidly, blindly loyal, because he still follows wherever Martin leads.

“Isn't that what you're doing?” Laurel asks though her voice is flat and there’s none of the edge he expected in her words.

“I’m not sure what I’m doing anymore,” he admits.

She sighs, somehow managing to twist herself into a sitting position without jarring her arm too badly, only a tight wince and a low, angry noise of pain making him realize how badly it hurts her to move at all. She sits back against the wall, shoulder sagging into his, but otherwise doesn’t let him touch her at all. “Then figure it out Lars,” she tells him fiercely. “Not just because I don’t really wanna die if it can be avoided. But because someday, this is all gonna catch up to you. Figure it out before you let it eat you alive.”

“I’m not guilty about this,” he tells her, the lie sounding clear and high in his ears, obvious and pathetic.

Laurel shrugs. “This,” she says, nodding between them as she scowls. “This is all guilt. You’re guilty and I’m, well, I’m trying to play you. You know that and I know that. So figure out why you’re letting yourself come to this, whatever this is, with a hostage.”

“That’s not what’s going on,” he tells her, voice low and deadly, angry that she’s trying, again, to reduce whatever surges between them as little more than a strange confluence of guilt and opportunism, as something that simple, something that easy to turn on and off. “You know that’s not.”

“I know it’s a part of it,” Laurel counters. “So figure it out, figure out why you’ve let this happen. Because you're as miserable as I am down here and only one of us is getting killed.”

“Laurel,” he starts miserably.

“Look, I get it,” she tells him tiredly, broken arm chasing her other as she pushes her fingers through her hair, pushes the strands back tight against her scalp. “I really do. You don’t want to be the bad guy, you want me to like you so you can pretend what you’re doing isn't as bad as you know it is. You want me to forgive you, basically.”

“That’s not…”

“Yeah,” she insists, her jaw clenching hard like she’s trying not to raise her voice, trying to keep it low and rough. “It is. Or some of it. And that’s cool. There’s a definite something here, with you and me, but some of its just guilt, wanting absolution or something.”

“Laurel,” he repeats, because she’s right, and he hates it, hates her for bringing it up, drawing attention to the things he’s always feared. He’s hated what they’ve been doing to her since the moment this job started and he’s been identifying with her far, far too much to be healthy, to get him through his job unscathed. He’s known it from the start, he’d just hoped he’d kept it all inside, kept all the things he thought he’d put behind him firmly in the past, but instead they’re churning up like wake in his path, drifting to the surface and tangling his mind, making him relive all the worst moments of his life, making him question all the things he’s constructed for himself since he was released. And now he knows he wasn't able to hide any of it, that Laurel saw right through him, saw the things he couldn’t keep inside, couldn’t keep from his face, his words, couldn’t keep from suffusing everything that’s grown between them with the festering guilt and loathing in his brain. He’s tried not to get himself too tangled in Laurel, in the ways she calls up the lingering ghosts from him decade behind bars, the panic and fear that he thought he’d left far behind him, had moved on from once he’d left that place in Northeast Pennsylvania behind him forever, but he hasn’t, he knows that know. The ghosts, the scars still linger on his mind, no longer raw and bloody but scabbed over and white and raised and still twinging in the rain, still aching in the cold.

“Figure it out Lars,” she tells him again, insistent and almost angry. “I like you, that’s not fake, much as I wish it was. I don’t want to think about you doing this in another year, hating yourself because you know how fucked up it is. You deserve better.”

“No one deserves anything,” he snaps, because rejecting her completely, getting angry and defensive is the only way to keep himself safe, protect his mind because there is no other way to distance himself from the things she’s trying to conjure up in him, the truth she’s trying to force him o face.

“You do,” she assures him sadly, almost grimly, taking his hand between hers. “More than I do. Go be a welder, ok? At least one of us should make it out of here.”

“I am,” he tells her, jaw clenching as his hands tighten into fists. “I’m walking out of here whatever happens.”

Laurel shrugs, scoffs. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” he tells her sharply, watching as Laurel’s mouth clamps shut, eyes flashing in a warning he can’t help but ignore.

“God, you're a fucking coward,” she hisses at him, turning away, their bodies no longer joined, walls snapping down between them. “You can’t even admit to yourself the way you feel. I may die at the end of this, but at least I can face the truth.”

“Is that what you think you're doing?” Frank demands, ice in his voice. How fucking dare she, this girl who thinks she knows him, how dare she call him a coward, tell him that just because he’s been nice to her, just because he’s stupidly infatuated with her, thinks that she’s smart and interesting and it’s a damned unnecessary crime to kill her that he’s a coward and pathetic and needs to reevaluate his entire life. He’s got a damn good life and just because he sometimes questions the things he has to do, sometimes wishes things were easier, doesn’t mean he has any desire to change his life, to do anything else.   
He’s had plenty of people try and convince him to go straight, and he’s found every single one of them pathetic and preachy.

And Laurel, well, Laurel just makes him furious because she knows nothing about him, doesn’t know a damn thing about his life and here she is judging him, taking stock of him and finding him wanting. He hates her for it, more than he thinks he’s ever hated anyone, because she’s nothing but a rich fucking daddy’s girl and she doesn’t know anything about what he’s faced, the terrible things he’s experienced, had done to him, can’t begin to tell him what he should or shouldn't be doing. 

She doesn’t understand that he can’t just go be someone else, just decide to go off and be a banker or a pilot or a doorman. He’s not built for that kind of work, his brain isn't wired for it, and besides that, no one’ll have him. He’s a man who spent a decade locked away and didn’t learn a single fucking useless skill while he was in there. Hell, it took him a good couple months of practice, of dedicated effort to really be able to understand a budget, what it would take to manage his money so that he wasn’t left short every month, resorting to pick pocketing tourists on the El and hustling college kids at pool. He went into juvie a kid, came out still a kid. 

And it took Chris, Chris and Mauro and the rest of the crime family who took him in to learn anything worthwhile, any skills that would actually make him money; how to boost a car and chop it down, how to crack a safe, disable a security system. Without them, he’d have nothing, he’d be nothing. And there’s not a single damn universe in which he’d turn his back on them, repay their kindness and trust with disloyalty. 

She doesn’t know what she’s asking, and that thought makes him furious, because she’s never been in his position, never had no money and no options, never had to worry about coming home and facing the worried, disappointed looks of his family because he was nothing more than a drain on them, a fuckup who they were gonna have to look after until he died. He may not be anything good, anything more than a monster, but he’s a monster that can face his family, he’s a monster that has a job and can do work and has people who count on him, who trust him, Chris and Mauro and the rest of the boys. Thanks to them, thanks to crime he gets to be someone, not some pathetic man child who got locked up and couldn’t adjust and bounced right back inside because it was the only place that felt right. 

Fuck her, Frank thinks, for not even living in a world where that reality is something she can understand, sheltered and pampered and never, for a single day, worried about going hungry, worried about disappointing her family, worried that she’d never be able to meet a single one of their expectations. Fuck her, he thinks again, she’s nothing but a haughty little princess and her words mean nothing beyond showing how sheltered, how pathetically ignorant she is about the rest of the world, about the choices they have to face. Her words make her unworthy, not him, he tells himself. “Facing the truth? You’ve been staging doomed escape attempts since this began. Its pathetic and you're deluding yourself worse than anyone here.”

Laurel says nothing, just glares fiercely at the nearest wall, pretending Frank is no longer there, that she no longer notices his presence, like he’s no longer worthy of her attention, going back to ignoring him as she had on that first, terrible day. She’s the one that’s not worthy, Frank tells himself again, she’s the one that’s pathetic and ignorant, the one that needs to reevaluate their life, their choices, the things they know. Her, not him.

“Why do you care?” he demands long minutes later, her anger, her silence gnawing at him because he’s pissed, furious nearly beyond words, but even so, despite everything, he still craves her, still finds himself drawn to her life a fish on a line, struggling and pulling but caught, caught for good. “What does it matter?”

“Who cares what I think?” she tells him, voice low and harsh, eyes still refusing to leave the wall, return to his. “It should matter to you.”

“It doesn’t,” he tells her harshly. “And you need to quit. Trying to turn me isn’t going to get you anywhere. Its even more pathetic than tapping out Morse Code no one’s gonna notice.”

She nods minutely but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge him. Instead, Laurel gets to her feet, goes and sits in the chair, silent and stiff and bristling with anger, like she can’t stand to be near him, like the energy crackling between their bodies burns her skin, scrapes red and raw against her arm.

“Oh c’mon,” he tells her, sighing loudly. “Don’t pout just because you can’t play me.”

He can see the way her jaw clenches against something she wants to spit at him, some retort he knows she has swimming in her brain. Instead she just remains silent and furious, glowering across the room at a spot that seems to have particularly offended her. 

He’s still furious and resentful, but then something like guilt begins to eat at him. He has maybe an hour, forty five minutes left with her, she’s got maybe six hours left until everything ends and he’s upset at her for nothing, upset at her for something that doesn’t even matter because he’s not going to do anything about it, not going to change, alter his life in any way. And she’s never going to know it, because she’s going to be dead in a matter of hours, dead and gone and snuffed out and will never know what he did or didn’t do, the things he chose to do with his life. He just resents that she thinks she knows what’s best for him, is devoting her limited time to telling him what to do, thinking she knows what’s best for him, trying to change him into something he’s not, some better person with a heart that isn't poisoned, corrupted. She was right when she called him a monster, and he can’t change who he is now, anymore than he can save her.

He can’t be someone else, someone better, can’t be the person she wants him to be. He doesn’t want to be someone else. But he doesn’t want her to be angry at him either, isn't sure he can stand that. Because that hurts too, knowing she’s furious at him.

But he doesn’t know what to do, what to say, because he’s angry too and he’s not going to apologize and he knows she isn't either. Laurel’s not going to give him anything, that much is clear.

“Look,” he says, running a hand across his beard. “You know exactly what I am. I’m the guy that Tased you, cracked you over the head with a rock. Just cause I haven’t broken your arm, doesn’t mean I’m any good. And it certainly doesn’t mean I want to be anyone different.”

She scowls, lets out a long sigh but remains silent, doesn’t say the things he knows she’s thinking, that just like he knows her, knows her deeply in a way he can’t really understand yet, she knows him, can see through him, see to the heart of him.

Laurel says nothing, and yet, Frank knows her thoughts, as clearly as if she’d voiced them and it makes him resent her even more.

“I don’t know what good you think its gonna do to hold a grudge,” he tells her then. “And I don’t know why you think the last five minutes changed anything about me or you or this entire situation.”

She remains silent, of course, using the only weapon she has at her disposal, her silence, to hurt him in the only way she can.

“I can’t be a welder,” he tells her with a sigh. “Or a carpenter or a truck driver. Even if I didn’t have a record. That’s not…I’m not cut out for a normal life like that. Its just not me.”

She turns, meets his eyes but they’re depthless, emotionless as though she’s retreated far away and doesn’t even really comprehend his words, like nothing he says can attract her attention.

“It’d be a lie,” he confesses. “I’d be faking it, trying to live like that. I couldn’t pull it off, cause I’m just rotten, y’know. Just wired wrong.”

There’s nothing that changes in her face, nothing that shifts other than a slight rise to her eyebrow, a slight narrowing to the corner of her eyes.

“And I can’t change who I am, not as much as I want to,” he sighs again, because its clear nothing he say is going to tempt Laurel to speak, to challenge him or agree with him or even just acknowledge his words. He’s lost her somehow, completely and irrevocably and he’s not sure what he can do to get her back. “I’d have to change everything about me. Hell, I’d have to go back in time, change that part of me too.”

He’s right of course, she simply holds his gaze, expression blank like Frank’s addressing himself, addressing the wall or the air or some other inanimate object.

“Will you please just talk to me?” he asks, practically pleading now, hopeless and pathetic and constantly chasing her, like chasing a falling star, wanting something he knows she can’t offer him.

Even that doesn’t get a reaction from her, just more of the stone wall of silence that’s dropped down across her eyes.

“I’m sorry ok,” he says finally, groveling now, his voice tight. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? Whether or not I go straight or stay a criminal doesn’t change anything.”

“I does to me,” she says finally, though instead of the crackling anger he expects, Laurel’s voice is tired and sad, cracking at the end. “It matters to me, ok.”

“Ok,” he sighs, unable to say anything else, because at the end of the day he’s not sure what else there is. “Ok.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, eyes fixed on her toes. “For whatever got you so mad.”

“I wasn't mad,” he tells her quickly, though its obvious to both of them what a lie it is.

Laurel’s jaw clenches and she frowns deeply, still refusing to meet his eyes. “Yes,” she tells him emphatically. “You were. You are.”

“I was,” he shrugs, swallowing back the last of his anger, telling himself to ignore it, to move on. “I am. So what? I’ll stop if you stop.”

She shrugs too, jaw still tight like she doesn’t quite know what to say, isn't quite sure she wants to let things go. Finally, though, she nods, though her body remains tense and stiff, burning through with an anger he suspects could consume them both at any moment, a small blaze ready to become an inferno with just a shift of the breeze.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, confession: this chap isn't so bad, but the next one is gonna be rough (as is like most of the rest of the fic). As Sam Jackson says, hold onto your butts...

Frank sighs, scrubs a hand across his beard, frustrated. “Ok,” he breathes out, a long slow exhale and when he sucks breath back in, he forces a crooked smirk to creep across his face. “Tres leches. I promised you one of those. Where do I get the best one in South Florida?”

Laurel raises an eyebrow at him, the rest of her face expressionless, though he can see a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, almost the first beginnings of a smile.

“C’mon,” he prompts, grin slipping wider, pleased now that he thinks he’s getting to her, softening the ice around her veins. “You’re getting a cake, might as well make it a good one. I don’t know shit about tres leches and I don’t know shit about this area, so help me out here, yeah?”

Frank watches her teeth pull at the full, plump skin of her lips, a thoughtful, wary, caution in her blue grey eyes, debating, he thinks, the cost of answering. Finally though he sees the decision in her eyes, grim and determined. “There’s a bakery off like 45th, maybe. Carla’s or Carlo’s or Carlita’s. Something. Go there.”

“Google’ll figure it out for me?”

Laurel nods. “Its not as good as my abuela’s, but under the circumstances it’ll have to do.”

“That gonna be your unfinished business?” he asks, taking the risk and teasing her, probing at the defenses she’s erected, the battle lines, searching for a weakness, any chink in her armor. “Haunting bake shops?”

“No,” she shakes her head, still scowling. “Haunt my abuela.”

“She’s not gonna mind that?” 

Laurel shrugs and against all odds something like a smile, yearning and wistful, cracks her face, though its faint and fleeting and turns into something more like a grimace before it ever really becomes a smile. “Doubt it. My abuelo’s been haunting her for like twenty years. She talks to him when she thinks no one’s pay attention.”

“You pay attention,” Frank points out.

She nods, shrugs again as if its not anything that matters. “Figure she won’t mind another ghost to keep her company. And maybe my abuelo can teach me the ropes or something.”

“Ghost training?”

“Yeah,” she says, shrugging again, a little crooked smile twisting her lips. “Why not?”

“You ever feel like haunting anyone new, haunt me,” he offers. “I’ll leave some pasta around for you if you want.”

She hums, doesn’t look at all interested in that idea, face going expressionless, carefully neutral. “Maybe. Pretty sure one of the downsides to being a ghost is that you can’t eat.”

“Maybe they can smell?” Frank suggests with a shrug, a crooked little grin. “I’ll leave it out for you anyway. Just in case you ever decide to stop by.”

“This isn’t a joke you know,” she tells him softly, a tremor in her voice like the shifting of the earth beneath his feet, the first rumblings of an earthquake, a landslide, some catastrophic shift in the landscape. “This is my life, or my death, I guess.”

“I know,” he assures her. “But sometimes it’s easier to laugh than to feel any other kinda way.”

He doesn’t know what it is, but he sees Laurel freeze, go completely, startlingly still, like she’s been carved from glass, her eyes sharp and fixed on him like she’s studying him, weighing something inside him, like she’s listening to the secret things inside his brain. “You’ve been through something like this,” she says distantly, voice echoing like she’s speaking to him from across a vast, empty distance. “Not a kidnapping, maybe, but you were a POW or locked up, weren’t you? Something fucked you up, didn’t it, like its fucking me up.”

“Nothing fucked me up,” he tells her, weary and sad and hovering on the edge of anger. He wants to tell her the truth, wants to snap at her to shut up, can’t decide, pulled in two separate directions by impulses he doesn’t fully understand. She sees straight through him, straight through to the heart of him in a way that’s both comforting and staggeringly terrifying, stealing his breath, stealing all coherence from his mind, just makes him want to simultaneously flee and run to her, seek comfort from her arms and lash out with fists, teeth flying. He wants to hurt her before she has a chance to hurt him, use the power she has, the knowledge she has against him, crush his heart to dust between her fingers. “I’ve always been this way.”

“No,” she tells him as though she can simply hear the lie in his voice, see it behind his eyes. She doesn’t sound angry to Frank’s ears, doesn’t sound sad or upset. She just sounds like she’s stating facts, resigned to the thing that he was made into, the thing that she’s becoming, worn down and shaped like water moving softly over rocks. “You weren’t.”

“Would it matter if that were true?” he challenges, hands curling into fists against the impulse to lash out at her.

“So what was it?” she asks, seemingly brushing past his words like gnats, like they’re nothing more than a nuisance, keeping her from the things she yearns to uncover. “Couple of years inside? You don’t really have the look of a soldier, but that might be deliberate.”

“Is there much of a difference between the two?”

Laurel lifts her eyes to his, a sharp, shrewd look in her gaze. “Probably not if you’re stuck somewhere you don’t wanna be,” she shrugs. “So how long was it for you? Six months? A year?”

“Longer,” Frank rasps, throat tightening around something that feels like terror, his voice a low rasp.

She hums, the frown that cuts across her face going hard, edged but her eyes, inexplicably, softening. “How’d you make it out in one piece?”

“Not sure I did,” is the only answer he can give her, his voice sounding distant and hollow in his ears like he’s talking across a bad connection, trying to make his voice heard from space.

He thinks she can hear the warning in his voice, like bared teeth, the thing strung through like grief, backs off, doesn’t press him any further on the place she can sense he’s weakest. “Does it get any easier?” she asks, her voice like a plea.

He nods, though he thinks his scowl gives the truth away far better than words ever could. “Not really, you’ll just get better at hiding it.”

“What if I don’t want to do that? Hide?” Laurel asks him the anger in her voice unmistakable, rising up and brimming and spilling over.

“I don’t see anyone making you,” he tells her carefully, trying to keep his voice neutral, trying not to tell her that before long she’ll come around, want to hide the demons in her head, wants to push the dark things in her mind away so that no one else suspects. It was painful having everyone watch him like he was a beast about to attack, like a porcelain doll that would break at any moment, it reminded him again and again of how broken he really was, how obvious it was to anyone who looked at him that he didn’t fit right in the world, awkward and twisted and ragged. 

He knows, but doesn’t want to tell her, how she’ll soon be spending every waking moment convincing the rest of the world, convincing herself that she’s fine, that everything’s normal, that her long, uncertain days tied up in a basement changed nothing, meant nothing, that she’s still the person she was before even though he knows she’ll feel no connection to that girl, some strange shadow who once wore her face, will smile too wide and too bright and laugh too loud at jokes she no longer finds funny, no longer really understands, as she tries to convince everyone else that she’s never been better, that she’s nothing, no one to worry about. Frank knows too, that even though she’ll hate the person she was before, think that Laurel weak and stupid and impossibly naïve, she’ll want, desperately to be that girl, to present that girl to the rest of the world, may even wish she could go back to ignorance, even as she hates it, hopelessly, blames the girl she was for the girl she is.

“I never want to go back to being that person,” she says vehemently, and Frank has to smile, grim and jagged at how easy it is to see the path laid out before Laurel, what life has in store for her should she ever leave this basement breathing, a life full of hiding and pretending and smiling like a doll, shoving down the darkness in her mind, the horror in her heart so that no one else will ever know of it, realize the scars burned across her soul.

“You won’t,” he assures her grimly. “Even if you wanted to.”

“You’re good at hiding it,” she tells him, though Frank can’t quite decide if she’s paying him a compliment or not.

“Not half as good as I wanna be,” he replies, hating how self-pitying he sounds, but wanting her to know at least enough of the truth, not wanting her taken aback if she makes it back into the world.

“Still,” she says, and now he thinks she’s trying to compliment him or reassure him, something. “I wasn’t sure until today. I thought you were just, I dunno, a hooker with a heart of gold or whatever the male equivalent is.”

“I think its ‘gentleman thief,’” he tells her with a smirk.

Laurel snorts softly, rolls her eyes, even as they crinkle at the corners, his heart seizing gently in his chest. “’Prince of thieves’? Like that crappy movie?”

Frank laughs too, a short bark. “Yeah, yeah that’s me for sure.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Definitely.”

He scowls then, reality intruding into the sudden sweetness moving between them. “Olaf’s gonna be down in a few,” he tells her. “You want anything, speak now.”

Laurel’s expression slips into its own scowl and she shakes her head slowly. “No.”

“I probably should tie you up again,” he begins but doesn’t make any further move to approach her.

She nods. “Probably.”

“You gonna be ok down here with him?”

“Yes,” she tells him, voice hollow. “I would tell you its been fun, but…”

“Its been something,” he finishes for her.

The corner of her mouth pulls slightly. “Yeah, its been something.”

“I’ll be sorry to see you go,” he admits.

She nods. “Thank you,” she whispers, so quietly he has to strain to hear her. “For trying to make this better. You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah,” he corrects sternly. “I did.”

“Well thank you anyway.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything,” he tells her, words catching across his throat, grief and guilt and shame, burning his cheeks.

“Its ok,” Laurel whispers. “You did as much as you could. As much as you felt you were able.”

He stands, hand carding through the short whiskers of his beard, fishing the zip ties out of his back pocket. “I’m sorry. But I gotta.”

Her shoulders hitch, face going blank. “Not quite yet,” she sighs, something in her face breaking, crumpling, drowned in grief. Laurel stands, takes a long slow step towards him and then another, until she hovers mere inches from him, practically touching, so close he can feel the heat of her body, so close he can almost imagine the sweet fan of her breath against his skin. “Just can we, I dunno, say goodbye?”

Frank smiles, softly, hearing the caution in her voice, the little hitch that sounds like fear, sees the tremble murmuring across her body, her hands, her shoulders, even the lines of her mouth. He nods, willing to give her anything, everything, wanting for his own sake too to delay the inevitable, delay their parting. He knows that more time won’t solve anything, won’t magically give either of them a solution to the stalemate, find a way to keep Laurel alive, free her from this basement without her father paying the demanded ransom, but he hopes for it, hopes that some perfect answer will spring, fully formed, from the air, be the thing they need to save Laurel from disaster.

“You wanna shake hands or…?”

He steps forward, pulls her into his arms before he can second guess himself, before he can reconsider, think about all the reasons why he shouldn't, just steps forward those last tiny inches and wraps his arms around her thin shoulders.

Laurel’s body is stiff, tense beneath his touch, like holding stone, the tremble still shooting through it like its going to shake her out of her skin, a rapid gentle tremor. He half expects her to pull away, or rather to push him backwards, hard and furious, her eyes flashing and the cut of her jaw murderous. But she doesn’t, her body easing into his touch, going loose, boneless against his, her face pressed against his chest, the top of her head tucked close under his chin, almost like she’s seeking comfort, strength from his body, drawing it from his skin.

He tries not to jar her arm, her shoulder, tries not to move at all but she doesn’t seem to notice her bound hands, just curls deeper into his skin as Frank’s arms against the thin span of her back force her closer, his fingers walking up the ridges of her ribs, feel the rapid tattoo of her heartbeats against his skin.

He thinks he ought to say something, ought to apologize or urge her to be strong, promise her it won’t hurt, a hundred thousand things he thinks he could say to somehow make these next few minutes, hours better that will all come up hopelessly short, no words in any language that’s been invented sufficient to convey the things he wants to say to her, the things he can’t bring himself to confess.. Instead, he just keeps his arms clasped around her body, as though he can shield her, protect her, as though by force of will he can summon up some magic spell, some miracle that will keep her safe from harm. Her breath, slipping warm against his skin, stutters and trips like she’s fighting off tears, fighting off panic, though slowly he hears it steady, slow like she’s readying herself for battle, finding the calm center, like the eye of a hurricane, inside herself, the place she needs to summon if she’s to get through the night.

He could love her, he thinks suddenly, given half a chance. In some other universe he could find himself falling deeply, maddeningly in love with her, twisted up until the only thing he saw was her. In some other universe they could have been good together. But in this one, he thinks with a sigh that comes a little too close to a sob, in this one, this is all they are, all they will ever be. Two people who cling to each other when the rest of the universe has gone dark, closing in around them until there’s nothing left. He should be scared, should be horrified of the thought that he could fall in love with her, and yet, Frank’s just sad, just deeply achingly sad that these have been the cards he and Laurel were dealt, a string of 2’s and a smiling fucking Joker, doomed to meet and doomed to part with nothing to show for it but a bullet between the eyes. It makes him sad because he knows, certain, it could have been different in some other, better world.

He doesn’t want to let go either, doesn’t want to drop his arms, doesn’t want to let her step back, sit down, doesn’t want to string zip ties around her limbs, trap her in place for the slowly creeping monster, a sacrifice to some great and terrible god, ravenous for blood. But he does, he has to.

Its Laurel who steps away first though, as he knew it would be. She’s stronger than him, he knows that too, better able to turn and face the nightmares that have walked out of their minds, gained form and substance and breath and walked out into the world, fully formed and grotesque, better able to confront them with anger and defiance. So she steps back, scrubs her thumb across the sharp edges of her cheekbones, brushing the lingering tears from her lashes, then hooks her thumb across the underside of Frank’s eye as well, catches the tears he didn’t realize were slipping from his lashes. She lifts to her toes then, rising as high as she can, until she can meet his gaze straight on, look into his eyes without the disadvantages of height.

Laurel presses a kiss against the line of his jaw, the corner of his mouth, just one, soft and fleeting, her touch gentle, just the whisper of skin against his, like her tough has been made of air, of cloud and not skin and blood and bones, just wisps of breeze and wanting. She pulls back, just an inch or two, eyes still fixed on his, brushes her fingertips across the swell of her lips, before they part, spread into the first tentative beginnings of a smile, and sits slowly in the chair, eyes never leaving his.

“I’m good now,” she tells him, voice flat but her lips suddenly curl into something that Frank thinks could almost be a smirk, teeth flashing in the half light.

He nods, still stunned, shell shocked, the place where her lips met his scorching like a burn, like lingering ghosts still mark his flesh and his mind reeling, his thoughts punch drunk and sluggish, unable to make any of the necessary connections between the fire still arcing across his lips, his jaw and the girl sitting, upright and regal, in the rickety wooden chair.

Frank shakes off what he can of the fog that wraps his head in layers of cotton and air and dizzying hope, that clings to his skin like the echoes of her touch, tries to focus on the things he needs to do, the things that will keep them both safe, for now. But still, but still, he can’t begin to understand what has happened, what she’s done, because there’s no universe in which she’s kissed him, pressed her lips to his, no reality in which that is or ever will be possible. And yet. And yet, he thinks, it happened.

He drops to his knees in front of her, feels again like he’s worshipping her, this strange and far removed goddess, wraps the ties around her ankles, pulls them tight, then cuts the tie between her wrists.

“Last time for it,” he blurts out before he can help himself, feeling Laurel’s body tense beneath his touch, stiff and rigid underneath the softness of her skin.

“I’m actually kinda getting used to it,” she tells him sarcastically with a crooked little grin. “Doesn’t hurt so much now.”

“You want anything before this party starts?” Frank asks. “Anything to help with the pain?”

She shakes her head, teeth sinking into her lower lip. “I want to be clearheaded. I wanna be able to face it head on.”

He nods though he knows she can’t see, threads a tie through the bindings on her wrists, clicks the tie until it pulls her arms together, close, hooked through the slats on the chair. “Laurel,” he says voice low, deep and rumbling. “You’ll be ok, you’ll be strong. And I’ll make it quick. Ok?”

She nods, jaw tight but stares forward blankly like she’s trying to hold herself at bay, her emotions in check, distant and vacant. 

He reaches out, takes both her hands in his, clasps them tightly, as tightly as he dares with her broken wrist, broken fingers, trying to convey his promises through his touch, trying to let her know he’s there for her, and will come through if he has to.

Frank hopes she returns the gesture, hopes she tightens her fingers around his but her skin is stiff and wooden, like her bones have been turned to stone, whittled down to nothing.

He stands then, goes around to face her. “What can I do?”

She shrugs, eyes sliding away from his like she can’t bear to see him. “I don’t know.”

“D’you want me to, I dunno, tell your dad anything? Your grandma?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest to resist the urge to take her in his arms again, sink to his knees and wrap himself around her, press his face to her stomach to seek comfort from her skin, draw strength from her body, a child clinging to its mother, hoping she’ll shield it from the world. “I’d just send them a letter whatever you want. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it earlier, I coulda brought down something for you to write. You coulda done it yourself.”

“No,” she murmurs. “I don’t need to tell anyone anything. I don’t know it'll help.”

He must look curious, skeptical because Laurel continues on, still refusing to meet his eyes, her face settling into something hard and brittle.

“Anything I’d say to my dad would just make him angry,” Laurel says. “And anything I’d say to my abuela would just make her sad. I don’t know why I’d do either.”

“Your brother?” Frank offers but Laurel again shakes her head.

“Maybe Manny Acevedo,” she tells him thoughtfully, the corner of her mouth twisting. “Tell him I’m sorry I got too drunk to sleep with him after Zoe’s party. Tell him that’s my one regret.”

Frank chuckles because otherwise he thinks he’s going to cry. He can see it in her eyes, the tight, almost rigid way Laurel carries herself as though she’s holding back the ocean, holding back more than she can bear, trying to keep herself strong and fearsome, trying to keep the fear, the hurt at bay. He thinks that if she accepts any possible regret beyond Manny Acevedo, anything that could hurt her more than not hooking up with some boy at some party that she will shatter, crumble into dust. She can’t let herself feel anything more, feel anything stronger than a vague, blurry longing to correct some half remembered mistake. “That’s your regret?”

She nods, barely able to move her head, her jaw with the effort it takes to hold her tears back. “Manny Acevedo and his mom’s mini-van with the fold down seats.”

“Fold down seats, huh?” Frank asks with a teasing grin. “Manny Acevedo sounds like a boss.”

Laurel shrugs. “Not really. He plays the saxophone and can’t spell for shit and has terrible taste in music. But I still wish I’d slept with him that night.”

“Manny Acevedo,” Frank repeats. “Got it.”

He’s about to ask if she has any other demands, any other wishes or requests or anything, anything he can do to make things better for her, but then he hears the sharp slide of metal against wood, the rasp of the lock against the door, hears the heavy echoes of footfalls on the stairs, and he knows its too late, knows their time has finally run out. He wants to say something, anything, doesn’t know what, doesn’t know what he can do to make anything better, but he wants to, so badly he feels like he’s been hollowed out, scraped raw and replaced with just a desperate, empty wanting, his throat clamped shut against any words, any breath.

He approaches her, knowing he only has seconds left, lets his hand fall, heavy and gentle, against the curve of her uninjured shoulder, thumb catching along the ridge of her collarbone, slipping across the soft curve of her skin. He doesn’t know what he expects, doesn’t know if he expects anything, but Laurel turns her head, tilts it just slightly, lets her head fall against his arm, the soft sweep of her hair tickling his skin. Just as he’s sure Chris is going to come into view, Laurel turns her head, presses her lips against the back of his hand, lingering against his skin.

“This isn’t goodbye,” he tells her as he pulls his hand away, fingertips lingering, not wanting to leave her, not yet. “Not yet.”

She nods. “I know,” she whispers, voice distant as he eyes skitter towards the staircase though Laurel lets a bitter little smile twist her lips. “Few more hours yet. Then you’ll be rid of me.”

“I don’t want to be rid of you.”

Her bitter smile grows. “Yeah,” she tells him. “Me neither.”

He wants to say more, wants to say a hundred thousand more things, never stop talking to her, but Chris appears then, trips down the last of the stairs.

“Hey kid,” he calls to Frank, running a hand through his hair. “You ready to put this fun little adventure behind you?”

Frank nods stiffly. “Yeah,” he says, voice flat. “Sure.”

Chris throws a long look at Laurel, something suspicious in his eyes before they swing back to Frank. “I was thinking maybe just Chik fil A for dinner? Something easy.”

He nods, food the last thing on his mind. “Ok, sure.”

“Grilled,” Chris tells him. “And waffle fries.”

Frank nods again, eyes meeting Laurel’s blue on blue as he turns towards the stairs, leaves the basement, feeling as though he’s done something horrible, like he’s abandoned her, like every step takes him further from where he wants to be, digging himself deeper and deeper into a mistake he’s no longer sure how to get out of.


	29. Chapter 29

He wants to sleep, wants to do anything, everything he can to clear his mind of the things happening below him, erase Laurel from his brain, scrub her clean, but instead he gets in the car, goes and grabs sandwiches, fries, knowing even as he hands over the cash that Laurel’s will go to waste, ignored and cast off, safe to say that the last thing she eats, her last meal, will be the pasta be brought her that morning, the thought hitting him harsh and crippling across his chest, a lead weight tied to his feet. Its too much, that responsibility, and it leaves him cold, leaves him desolate and with a lump that feels too close to a sob rising against his throat.

He’s halfway back to the house when he remembers, stops and turns his car around, unconcerned, uncaring about the rapidly cooling food in the passenger seat. Instead of going back, he drives towards 45th, hopes he can find the bakery Laurel had spoken of, Carla’s or Carlo’s or Carlito’s. It takes him a few minutes of driving around, a few minutes tapping away on his phone, but he finds it, fortunately still open, goes in and manages to buy a medium sized tres leches cake, manages to smile wanly and say something vague about a birthday party when the cashier asks him about his purchase, tries not to sob or cry or confess everything to the clerk as panic, bile and grief sit heavy over his heart.

He goes back to the house, leaves the cake in the car in a fit of paranoia, certain Chris or Martin will see it, know what it is, what it represents, and instead just slinks down to the basement with the now cold chicken sandwiches, finds Chris already half asleep and Laurel with her eyes turned towards the ceiling, deep in thought. She lowers her eyes as she hears him approach, gives him a small, thin smile that vanishes as Chris notices Frank’s presence.

“The hell took you so long?” he asks as Frank hands him the bag.

“You’re welcome,” he tells the other man sarcastically, giving Chris a crooked smile as he rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah,” Chris tells him, fixing Frank with his own grin, holding up the bag and giving him a little salute. “Thanks man.”

“Yup,” Frank says, wanting to think of some excuse to stay, some excuse to linger and stay with Laurel, give her something like comfort, companionship in her last hours. He can’t and he knows it, but the desire is still there, creeping up through his blood until it nearly overwhelms his brain.

He goes back up, thinks about bringing the cake into the fridge, leaves it in the car instead, wonders if he’ll ever do anything else with it, wonders if it will just sit in the back of the rental car, forever, forgotten and lost, slinks into his bedroom, tries to sleep. Instead he simply stares at the ceiling, stares at the muted shifting light spilling in from the half covered window.

He doesn’t dare glance at his phone, doesn’t dare check the time, but he can feel the seconds tick past, each one a sharp little pinprick deep in his chest, can feel the hour creep closer on its deadly claws, stalk towards them, its breath warm and fetid on the back of Frank’s neck, snarling and deadly and seeking, craving blood.

He wracks his brain for something, anything, some last minute reprieve he has been blind to, heart pounding in his ears like drumbeats, panic rising in his throat, slick and choking as every second that passes, every beat of his heart feels like one step closer to a doom he can’t evade.

And it feels almost like and yet distinctly different from that moment when he was eleven, two weeks shy of his twelfth birthday, sitting in that courthouse downtown, big and marble and feeling half an inch tall, feeling the weight of all his decisions, all his lack of decisions, weighing down on him with each passing moment, waiting for the judge to tell him that his life was over, two weeks shy of his twelfth birthday and his life was going to end. It’s the same still the same rising panic, the same feeling of paralysis, of knowing he needs to move and yet not knowing how, not being able, like his feet have been cemented to the floor, like his body has been trapped in ice, in amber, preserved for future generations to study, to wonder why he was such a fucking idiot and hadn’t just saved himself. 

And yet, its different, because its not himself he wants to save, and that makes it worse, because he can feel the extra weight, the extra responsibility of Laurel, of wanting, desperately, to find some way out of the trap for her and instead simply feeling the jaws snap shut, the noose pull tighter and tighter against her throat. And the worst of it is that he doesn’t know what to do, powerless and pathetic, incapable of holding off the oncoming tide no matter how he stands in its path. He’ll just be drowned as well and he knows it, isn’t sure that’s not exactly what he wants.

Midway through the evening he hears noise from the street outside, some kind of commotion, not angry or upset, he thinks, though it takes him a moment to recognize anything that isn't steeped in sadness, in despair. It takes even longer for it to dawn on Frank that its Halloween, that the sounds he hears are children trick or treating outside, not at this house, obviously, dark and shuttered, but in the street outside. He lets it wash over him, the sounds of children screaming, playing, wonders why he can’t remember a time when he thinks he ever felt so happy, so free, not even in the time before the world ended.

He wonders, idly, and yet, perfectly seriously, whether Laurel dying on Halloween will make it more or less likely that she returns as a ghost, rejects the thought because if there's any justice in the world, any goodness, she’ll just be allowed to die, just be allowed to slip away, fade into nothingness. 

At eleven fifteen he rises again, sneaks quickly into Chris’ room, rifles through his pack until he finds what he’s looking for. Frank had known the other man would have brought it with him, smiles a pleased little grimace when he’s proven right, when his fingers connect with the cold, slippery metal of the Chris’ pistol.

Chris has carried it with him everywhere, for as long as Frank’s known him on the outside, probably since the day he got released, carried it with him like a talisman, as a token of good luck or protection, even when Frank thinks there’s really no need for it, even when he knows what a risk it is for Chris to have the gun at all. But Chris, well, Chris has always taken a different approach from Frank, always wanted to finish the fight before it began, with greater force, sheer numbers, overwhelm his enemies with his violence so that not only would he win the battle, he ends the war as well wth one brush of his finger against the trigger of the compact little handgun.

Frank’s never been big on guns, but he doesn't trust Martin, doesn't want to rely on the other man to give him a gun, doesn't want to seek permission from the other man, a permission he's certain he won't be granted. He wants to have the choice himself wants to ensure he can follow through on his promise, no matter what, wants to give Laurel the one thing he can, the one comfort he can. And Chris’ gun is the only option he sees left open to him to ensure that he can carry out that promise.

He checks that the gun is loaded, that the safety’s on, then tucks the gun into the waistband of his jeans, pads into the kitchen and settles himself at the table, waits. He knows by the soft, glowing light under Martin’s door that the other man hasn’t gone downstairs yet, for some reason balking at retreating to the basement before the other man does, like he will sense the things in Frank’s heart, the inevitable death he wishes, hopelessly, to avoid, the thing he’s been asked to do to hasten it, make it sudden and painless. He can’t let Martin know any of what breathes between himself and Laurel, its own living creature, small and eggshell soft, because if the other man knows, can sense what lies between them, he will kill Laurel himself, just to teach Frank a lesson, just to prove a point, and he will make it slow, he will make it last, each moment growing in pain, in horror. No, Frank must keep his distance or he will fail her, fail her in the only way that’s ever mattered, fail her when she needs him most to succeed.

At quarter to midnight, Martin emerges from his room, eye burning with anger and his jaw sharp with rage.

“Hey boss,” Frank calls out, though he knows he shouldn't, wanting to test the waters, judge the older man’s mood, like dipping a toe into a pool to judge the temperature, judge the danger.

Martin just glowers, crosses his arms over his chest, ever muscle in his body tight with simmering rage.

“I take it you haven't heard back from Castillo,” Frank says more than asks as he takes in Martin’s tight, angry expression, the rigid lines of his body and the hard glare in his eyes.

“No,” he grits out, furious.

“Bummer,” Frank replies, trying to play it cool, trying to play it casual, not let Martin see that Frank’s as torn up about the outcome as Martin is, just for a vastly different reason. He can’t let the other man come anywhere close to knowing the lines he’s let himself cross with Laurel, the strange emotions like loyalty, like affection he’s allowed himself to feel. He knows the older man will never let Frank be the one to pull the trigger if he thinks there’s anything more than disinterest, than simple bloodlust or a sense of duty underlying his actions. He would never let Frank kill her if he thought that it would make the death easier on Laurel, if he suspected it was what she wanted, that she would take any comfort from her death.

But Frank’s gotten good at pretending, at hiding his emotions, the things he feels, and he knows Martin has no idea. Chris might, he thinks, but he knows the other man won’t say anything, his loyalty to Frank running as deep as Frank’s loyalty to him. And so, as long as Frank doesn’t fuck something up, as long as he plays his cards right, it will all work out as best it can, or well, it’ll still be a disaster, but he’ll at least give Laurel something, some one, tiny, unimportant, meaningless thing out of the horrible, unending nightmare of the past few days.

“You gonna call him one last time?” Frank asks, trying to see if there’s chance of things not speeding towards ruin, towards death, if there’s any hope for a last second reprieve.

Martin nods. “Yes. But I doubt it will change Castillo’s mind. The cops got to him and he won’t cave. They won’t let him.”

“You’d think he’d prioritize his kid’s life over what the cops are telling him to do,” Frank ventures because really, that’s what he doesn’t get, what he’s not sure he can understand in all this, the key piece that he’s missing to make all the puzzle pieces fit together into a pattern. He just doesn’t understand why Jorge Castillo refuses to pay, refuses to do anything that could save his daughter, seems resigned to the inevitability of her death, as though the moment she was kidnapped she ceased to exist.

He doesn’t get it, isn't sure he ever will, because he knows that if it were his kid, know that if it were him who was kidnapped, he would do anything to get his child returned, knows that his parents would do the same. 

Hell, when he was facing charges, facing the prospect of spending a decade, two, the rest of his life behind bars, his parents fought for him, scraped and saved and paid his bail and begged the PD to help them, help Frank, somehow keep him out of jail, always were willing to do anything that they thought had even a glimmer of hope of saving him. Frank knows he would do the same thing for any kid of his, would let himself suffer, would beat his knuckles to bloody pulps, run himself ragged if he thought he could save his child. 

And Laurel’s dad, well, he’s abandoned her completely, turned his back on her, accepted her death as a natural progression of events, something he doesn’t have the power to stop, to avert. Frank doesn’t understand it, doesn’t think he can, but wants to, hopelessly, wants to understand so he can do something to stop it, fix it, change it.

Martin’s glower deepens. “Because the cops have convinced him we would’ve killed her anyway,” he grits out through clenched teeth.

“And?” Frank prompts, because that’s something he’s wondered since this job started, whether its just been a cover to kill her, kill Laurel and get some kind of strange, twisted revenge on her father. He still hasn't quite shaken the thought, still isn't sure that’s not what’s going on. “Would we?”

Martin fixes him with a look, sharp and shrewd and piercing. “Does it matter?”

Frank shrugs, pretends that the question doesn’t catch against his heart, sink hooks into his mind, make him wonder at the truth behind this job, the real goal. “No, guess not.”

“Good,” Martin nods, his eyes cold.

“D’you uh, d’you think I could do it?” Frank asks, his stomach knotted and twisting until he can barely breathe, barely speak. This is it, this is what it comes down to, either a yes or a no and that’s it. Either he can do what Laurel asks of him or he can’t, he fails her. “Kill her? If it comes down to it?”

The other man gives him a sharp, sharp look, like he’s seeing Frank for the first time, looking suddenly like Frank has finally said something of interest, something that Martin can stand to hear more of, like perhaps Martin has misjudged Frank completely. He hums, watches Frank from the corner of his eyes. “I don’t see why not.”

“Cool,” Frank says, because he doesn’t want the other man to realize he’s asking not because he particularly wants to kill Laurel, because he’s relishing the idea of her death in anyway, bloodthirsty and rapid, but because he wants to make it easier on her, wants to ease some of the horror and terror and sheer bloody knuckled agony of the whole thing. “Uh, thanks.”

“Do you have a gun?” Martin asks him.

“Yeah, uh. I do actually,” Frank nods, deciding not to admit the gun isn't his, but admitting to having one. “We’re gonna shoot her right? Not any of that other stuff?”

Again, Martin looks at him shrewdly, eyes narrowing like he’s taking stock of Frank, looking into his heart. Finally he nods as well. “Yes, we’re just going to shoot her. I’m if tasked with killing someone, I’m not leaving anything up to chance, I’m going to make sure she’s dead, and quick.”

“Oh, ok,” Frank says, swallowing thickly. “Just, I dunno, making sure I guess.”

“Were you looking for something more exotic?” Martin asks, voice curious and cold and his eyes fixed on Frank like he’s a predator ready to strike.

“No,” he admits. “No, just wanted to make sure I understood. What I should be doing, what you want me to do.”

“Kill her,” Martin shrugs. “Nothing fancy. I’d like to dump her in the woods, let her freeze to death or starve or drown. But our employers want something a bit more definite, a bit more concrete.”

“Yeah,” Frank agrees wanly, swallowing hard. “Makes sense I guess.”

“So the only thing I ask is that you make sure she’s dead,” Martin tells him. “Anything else, well, feel free to be creative if you want.”

“Yeah, cool.”

“Go downstairs,” Martin tells him, his voice cold, sounding like an order. “I’ll make the call, meet you once I know how we’re going forward.”

“Ok,” Frank agrees, retreating to the basement, ice spreading from his fingertips up his arms, across his chest and towards his heart, rising, rising, cold and hollow as it begins to dawn on him that there’s nothing that can be done, no last minute reprieve, no deus ex machina that’s going to swoop down and resolve everything, save Laurel or find some solution that was previously hidden from sight, but lingering there, ready to be discovered. He knows it’s a lie, knows there’s nothing coming to save her, out of time, out of options, out of hope. He knows that now and it freezes him from the inside, freezes him until he’s not sure there’s anything left.

He slides the lock off the door, trudges down the heavy wooden stairs, feeling almost like he’s making the walk towards his own execution, except he knows he’s not, knows that anything like fear, like apprehension he feels is nothing compared to Laurel’s, that he’s walking towards her’s, the hooded executioner, ready to swing the ax or kick the barrel from beneath her feet or flip the switch or, and he stops thinking of metaphors, stops thinking figuratively, or, he pulls the trigger and sends a bullet into her chest or her head or… He’s a one man firing squad.

Laurel’s eyes are fixed on the stairs as he comes into view, like she’s been waiting for him, waiting for some sign, waiting to know her fate, a last minute call to the governor with a stay from the courts becoming a sudden change of mind from Martin. She immediately glances away, like she can read on his face that there will be no relief coming, that her fate is sealed, the kill order written and the shot, while it hasn’t reached her yet, has already been fired, Laurel just waiting for the bullet to hit home. Her eyes slide away from him, slide to what he thinks must be the far corner of the room, her shoulders curving in as best they can against her bindings, curling her small like she wants nothing more than to be tiny, unnoticed, wants to vanish into the air, simply cease to be.

Frank wants to go to her, wants to wrap his arms around her again, anchor her back to the world where they both know she needs to remain, remain strong, remain fierce and unbroken. He wants to take some of her pain, her fear, wants to absorb it somehow through his skin, take everything from her and leave only iron behind. He wants to whisper to her that he can’t possibly understand, but he knows she’s strong, knows she will be strong and that he’s in awe of her. He wants to tell her it’ll only be a little longer and that he knows it will be hard, but he knows her and he knows she can do it. But he doesn’t, he can’t, because not a single thing Frank does from here on out will make things better save one. The only thing he can do to help her is to kill her. He knows that and she knows it too.

Chris too looks up as Frank enters the basement, looks up with something like hope in his eyes, like he too is waiting for a reprieve he’s certain isn't coming. His eyebrows raise slightly, something eager in his gaze. Frank thinks its because he was expecting Martin and, seeing Frank, had hoped it was some signal that things had been called off, that Laurel’s father had agreed to the ransom and they simply needed to bundle her into the car, send her on her way, back to her family, back to her life.

Frank just shakes his head, watches as Chris’ jaw tightens, his eyes drop. Frank wonders if there could even be half a chance, if he and Chris teamed up, of convincing Martin that killing the girl serves no purpose. He doesn’t think there’s any possible hope for it, not a single, solitary iceberg’s chance in hell.

“So that’s that then, huh?” Chris asks, scrubbing a hand along his jaw so that Frank doesn’t have to see his frown, so he has an extra second to smooth the dislike, the bitterness from his face. But Frank’s known Chris too long to be fooled by that, can read in the other man’s eyes exactly how little he likes what they’ve now been asked to do.

“Seems like it,” Frank answers, lifting his eyes towards the ceiling where he thinks he can almost hear Martin pacing furiously.

Chris sucks in a long breath. “This was not how I expected this job to go,” he tells Frank, almost like a confession. 

“Yeah,” he mutters, because its not like Frank’d done any better, fighting the job at every turn still landed him in the same hopeless position. “I don't think she did either.”

“But you knew it didn’t you?”

Frank shrugs. “Doesn’t matter now. Here we all are.”

“I really thought this was gonna be an easy job,” Chris says, not even bothering to throw a cursory glance at Laurel, figure out if she’s listening, picking up on discord among the ranks. “In, out, send her back to her old man a little richer.”

“Nothing’s ever as easy as all that,” Frank says, though his impulse is to tell the other man that he told him, from the start, this was a disaster waiting to happen, that had they both known that from the start, they could’ve done something about it, done something before now when there’s literally nothing that can be done except ride it out, see this job through till its terrible, bloody end.

“Still,” Chris says, his frown sharp. “It should’ve been done right. A real kidnapping.”

“We could, I dunno,” Frank ventures, like he’s only just thinking of the idea. “We could just let her go.”

The other man gives Frank a sharp, scolding look. “You know we can’t,” he tells him, a warning in his words. “You know there's absolutely no way.”

“Yeah,” Frank sighs, stomach sinking because if he doesn’t have an ally in Chris there really is no way to avert the inevitable, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and somehow conjure a way to save Laurel. And still, like an idiot, he clings to hope. “I know.”

And then, the three of them hear Martin’s footsteps on the stairs, deep and slow like the tolling of bells, signaling an end, a death they’ve all long known is coming. All three of them, Frank and Chris and Laurel freeze, go perfectly still like they’re copies of themselves in some wax museum, listening, watchful and waiting, for some signal, some sign, something. Frank’s eyes are drawn to Laurel, wanting to comfort and protect her despite all odds, sees her begin to shake, tremble like a leaf, almost too fast to see, almost but not quite, sees the fear slowly consume her, a fire climbing higher and higher until it leaves nothing left in its path. And then, again, she summons that iron strength from somewhere, conquers the things that cloud her mind and forces the fear down, back, forces her body still, unmoving, forces herself to be a stone, unyielding, unfeeling.

“So,” Martin says crisply as he comes into view, clasping his hands together. “I’ve heard from your father.”

His words are clear, concise, and almost studiously casual but they can all hear the rage rippling through his words, the tightly controlled fury narrowing his gaze, setting his muscles tight and straining.

Laurel doesn’t even dare look at him, doesn’t dare let herself get excited, feel anything approaching hope, Frank can tell by the way her eyes remain fixed firmly on a spot somewhere on the wall, fixed and unfocused but with an intensity he still finds himself marveling at, refusing to lift her eyes, refusing to show Martin she has any concern for anything he could say, any fate he could pronounce.

He sighs, shrugs, as though the outcome depresses him, saddens him. “He will not be paying the asked for ransom.”

Frank sees Martin’s eyes narrow, sees him regard her shrewdly like a hawk watching its prey, like a cat ready to toy with a mouse, torture it until it simply wishes for death. There’s a quirking to his lips that hints at a smile, hints at cruelty.

“Well,” he tells her after a pause Frank decides is intentional, rocking back on his heels like he can’t quite contain his eagerness, his excitement. “I suppose there’s nothing for it then.”

He turns to Frank, an air of expectation in his glance, a twisting little smirk flitting across his mouth. “Have you thought about how you want to do it?”

“I uh,” Frank starts because no, he hadn’t really considered how he would go about achieving Laurel’s death, killing her in the easiest and quickest and most painless way possible. “Not really.”

Martin turns to Laurel, smile creeping wider now, wide enough Frank can see his teeth, sharp and glinting, the cruelty in the cast of his mouth and the pleasure in his eyes. “Do you have any preferences?” he asks her indulgently, and Frank can practically hear the mocking snicker behind his voice.

Slowly she turns her head to stare at Martin, eyes lifeless and hard. Frank expects her to meet the other man with an impenetrable wall of silence, refuse to respond to the request, refuse to give Martin any consent to the things that will be done to her. Instead she answers him. “On my feet,” Laurel tells him, voice cold and thick as steel. “Like I’m a person, not a fucking dog.”

Slowly, Martin stalks towards her, slaps her quickly across the face. “I’ve told you not to curse,” he tells her simply with something that Frank swears is an apologetic shrug behind his words, like its Laurel’s fault for disobeying his rules.

Laurel doesn’t turn away, doesn’t even suck in a breath of pain, or surprise though her cheek flames red and her body twists from the force of Martin’s blow. “Well?” she asks, voice steady, bored. “You gonna let me have that at least? Slapping me wasn't much of an answer.”

Martin’s mouth quirks, brows knitting together like he’s going to get angry, fists opening and closing like he’s going to strike her again but eventually nods once. “Get her legs untied,” he calls out, turning his head though Frank can’t tell whether he’s ordering him or Chris to do it.

Chris is moving before Frank can even really understand Martin's words, comprehend what he should be doing, going over behind Laurel’s chair, his little switchblade held lightly between his fingers as he cuts the ties around her ankles with quick flicks of his wrist. He gives Martin an enquiring little glance and the other man nods once, setting Chris snapping the tie between her wrists as well.

“Get her up against the wall,” Martin commands then turns to Frank. “How good a shot are you?”

Frank shrugs, tearing his eyes away from Laurel, from Chris. “Good enough,” he says, tongue feeling heavy and sluggish and slurring, not sure how to respond, what to say, what to do. He feels like he’s operating on autopilot, unable to avert his eyes from the horrific, gruesome things coming for Laurel, feels like he’s a wind up toy set walking towards a cliff edge, unable to divert his path, unable to turn away, unable to stop until his actions are played out, actions that have been put into motion by forces beyond himself, outside himself. He feels powerless to stop anything, powerless to turn away, powerless to save her.

Everything is happening too fast around him, feels like its operating at double time, flashing before his eyes faster than he can understand, blurring in from of his vision, and Frank feels like he’s operating at a snails crawl, too far behind the eight ball to prevent anything.

Martin nods. “I’d prefer you aim for the chest,” he tells Frank idly as Chris grasps Laurel around her bicep, yanks her to her feet, begins to maneuver her towards the far wall Martin indicated. He expects her to resist, expects her to jerk away from his touch, fight off Chris’ hands, resist her fate with everything inside her like she did when Frank had attempted to Tase her all those days ago. It makes him ache, desperately in a way he can’t really begin to understand, makes him want to sob, already grieving for Laurel, for the death that’s already swallowed her when she gets to her feet placidly, follows Chris’ tug on her arm. “It’ll be easier for identification. But I’d understand if you went for the head.”

Frank nods mutely, or thinks he nods, or wishes he could nod, something, removes the heavy handgun from his waistband, feeling the cool metal against his palm, cool and slick and weighty. He wants to fling the gun from him, wants to tell Laurel to run, to fight, something, something. Anything.

Instead, he sighs, waits until Chris presses her up against the cool cinderblock wall, lingering beside her as though to confirm she’s going to comply, not going to resist, try to run or hide or fight, going to go willingly and calmly to her execution. Its not what he’d have expected from her, not what Frank would have bet on if anyone’d asked him to bet, would have sworn Laurel would resist till the end, resist her fate with everything inside her, fight with teeth and nails and limbs and cling to life with every last atom of her life. He wants to tell her to fight, to resist, not to go quietly, docilely into oblivion, into nothingness, wants to tell her that she’s stronger than that, that she’s fierce and terrible and awesome.

And then it dawns on him, far too late, far too slowly, that she’s resisting in the only way she can, resisting on her own terms, not giving anyone, not giving the universe itself the satisfaction of seeing her fear, seeing her defeat. She’s resisting in her own way, the only way she’s able now, knowing that she’s not capable of preventing death, but accepting it, allowing it to come without showing anyone her fear, without allowing herself to resist and fail. Laurel is, Frank realizes, defying her fate in the only way she’s capable, by refusing to struggle against the overwhelming forces moving against her, by turning and facing and staring down the barrel of the gun, by smiling at death and choosing to great it as a friend, not something to fear, not something to flinch from.

She’s resisting in the only way she can, setting her own terms when all options, all paths have been closed to her except one. It sends cracks spiderwebbing and splintering across his heart, hopeless and broken. He doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to kill her, doesn’t want to let anyone else do it, doesn’t want to let her down, fail her in this one thing, this one single, last thing he can give her, the one thing she’s asked of him. He doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to have ever met Laurel, doesn’t want to live in a world that she doesn’t live in too. He wants, he wants, everything and nothing and all the possibilities in between.

He meets Laurel’s eyes, blue on blue, diamonds meeting the sea, her gaze holding his like he’s the only thing that matters, the only thing in her world, like she wants him to be the last thing she sees, the only good thing left in her world.

Vaguely he hears Martin tell him to go ahead, to fire, hears the shuffle of Chris’s feet somewhere beside him until everything shrinks down to just him and Laurel and the heavy steel of the gun. Frank lifts the barrel, aims it at the space between her eyes, the soft little sliver of skin between the blue grey of her eyes, feels a sound like a sob rise from his chest as he clicks the safety off, finger brushing over the trigger.

He sees her jaw tighten, her body tense like she’s bracing herself, trying to turn her skin into diamonds, but her eyes remain open, fixed on his, soft and sweet and sad. She sucks in a long, slow breath, deep and even, steadying herself, steadying Frank and he watches her fingers curl against the rough cinderblock of the wall, watches the jump of her pulse, steady and sure, across the gentle curve of her throat, his own breath mirroring hers as it leaves his chest.

Laurel nods then.  Once.

And Frank fires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually when i post a chap like this i say something like 'sorry, not sorry'...well this time I'm actually sorry.  
> It gets (a little) better tho, maybe...


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, but i hope you'll like what i did here at least re: the dead body (or bodies...)...? :)

There’s the crack of the shot, sharp and booming, and a scream, Laurel’s he thinks, high and keening and the dull thud of the bullet impacting the wall behind her.

And when he looks up, opens his eyes again, there’s a tiny, raw divot in the wall, just at forehead height, marring the blank white wall.

He can’t dare to look down, can’t dare to see her body, broken and bloody and crumbled, can’t bare to see Laurel dead and broken, his eyes fixed on the wall, on the little scar left by the bullet.

But then there’s another noise, angry and low and a pressure against his chest, sending Frank stumbling backwards.

“The fuck?” he hears Martin snap, voice murderous. “What did you do!?”

And the other man’s hands shove Frank again, heavy against his chest and then he’s turning away, turning toward where Laurel’s body lays flat against the ground, hands out at her sides and her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

And her chest, heaving, trembling with breath, her chest rising and falling and shaking and then she’s blinking and there’s no blood, no shattered skull or viscera or any wound at all and he doesn’t understand, doesn’t understand how there’s a bullet lodged in the wall behind where Laurel was standing and no wound on her, no blood, can’t comprehend how Laurel is perfect and alive and whole, how she’s still breathing, still moving, the thing between them still sizzling like fire. He doesn’t know how she’s still breathing, blinking, alive and crumpling now as Martin sends his boot into her side, kicking out at Laurel’s body, sending her curling tight and crying out and he still doesn’t understand.

“You stupid girl,” Martin hisses, sending another kick at her side, low and sick and shattering, a pistol suddenly appearing in his hand, pointed at Laurel’s forehead. Things are appearing, disappearing, occurring without any connection, without any reason or logic, like he’s trying to read a book with half the pages torn out, like he sees only stuttering glimpses of a film passing before his eyes. “You think you can just duck? You think that’ll do anything but make things worse for yourself?”

Frank braces for the shot, braces for the final killing blow but then Laurel launches herself forward, launches herself at Martin, all curled muscles and hands like claws and suddenly the other man is tumbling to the ground, spilling onto his back with a cry of anger and pain, crashing to the floor as Laurel scrambles to her feet, sinks to her knees atop Martin’s body, landing blow after blow against his face, his chest, her fist brutal and punishing, teeth bared and terrible and snarling, spitting, crackling with rage, murderous and terrifying, a righteous vengeful goddess, blood bursting hot and red and thick from his skin, spattering against hers.

Except the gun is still in Martin’s hand, rising now, rising and pointing directly at Laurel’s chin and there’s another shot and again Frank looks away, can’t bear to see her dead. And there’s a terrible explosion as the bullet strikes one of the fluorescent lights, sparks and glass exploding through the basement as both Martin and Laurel flinch away, flinch from the white hot shrapnel, sharp and deadly, raining down on them, Laurel still somehow, miraculously alive, a strange red welt arcing across the curve of her cheek the only evidence of the bullet’s path. Frank too, ducks away from the shattered glass of the exploded light, covers his head and when he looks up Martin’s trying to shoot again, Laurel’s whole upper body straining with the effort it takes her to force his arm to the ground, prevent it from rising, prevent it from firing again.

She tries to smash his fingers against the concrete, tries to pry them loose from the gun, anything to wrest the pistol from his hand but there’s another shot, somewhere off to the side, no danger to Laurel, and another, and finally she manages to send the gun skittering out of Martin’s grasp, across the floor, Frank thinks he hears the soft thud of it hitting the wall somewhere, can’t be sure because Laurel is striking out again, except now there’s more blood, so much blood, coating her face, her hands, slick against her hair, practically pouring from Martin, or the creature that once was Martin, sliding across the floor in rivers that become puddles.

Oh, Frank thinks, the thought catching against his throat, oh, a knife, Chris’ knife, his brain finally processing the flashing, disjointed images, finally knitting them together into an order, into a series, into some kind of pattern that makes sense, except it doesn’t make sense at all, nothing is making any damn sense. Frank can’t understand where Laurel managed to get her hands on the other man’s knife, how Chris didn’t notice that it was missing, how any of this has come to pass, the knife and Laurel and the bullet fragments lodged in the wall, just at the height of Laurel’s eyes and the shattered light fixture above their heads. And Laurel’s fist is still lashing out, striking heavy and flashing and quick against the body in front of her, stabbing again and again and there’s still red, still blood, hot and sticky, splattering against her skin, layer after layer, a kaleidoscope pattern in a single shade.

And then she’s scrambling back, skittering against the floor, legs and arms sliding, slipping against the floor that she makes slick with her skin, with the blood coating her, breath coming harsh and heaving and rasping, like a death rattle but she’s still alive, still alive, pressing her back against the wall like she fears another attack, fears Martin will get to his feet and strike her again, like he’ll pull another gun from somewhere and fire again, strike her this time, the bullet finally hitting its mark and Laurel’s luck finally running out.

But Martin is still lying there, still sprawled, motionlessly against the ground, unmoving except for the long, slow trickle of blood from his body and Frank stares at the other man, uncomprehending, until he begins to move again then, presses a hand against the ground, leaving a terrible, bloody streak of a handprint against the concrete, rising to his feet like some terrible vengeful beast, coated in blood and seeking only more of it, more death and blood and pain. He smiles a terrible smile, blood dripping from his skin, his teeth, pouring from his body in long, heavy gushes but still he comes like some creature from a nightmare, steps forward, staggers at first, but slides forward towards Laurel with ever increasing speed and even though she still clutches the knife in her fist, holds it out towards Martin like a shield, and even though Frank can see the hard set of her eyes, her jaw, her entire body bracing for the attack, he knows, innately, that Martin is going to kill her, even wounded, perhaps mortally, he’s going to kill her this time, going to do what he’s failed at twice so far, but this time will be different. This time he will not underestimate her.

Except Martin staggers back, jerks like he’s been electrocuted, once and then again and then a third time, sinks to his knees like his legs have been taken from under him and its only then that Frank hears the echoes of the crack that arcs across the basement, echoes of the three shots, fired from the gun he still clutches in his fingers, the gun that he fired, the gun that now slides from his fingers, clatters against the floor as Frank stares down at a hand that he thinks may be connected to an arm that may be connected to a body that might be his, or was his and may be again, a hand with fingers that somehow acted on their own, instinctively, without conscious thought or intention, simply squeezed the trigger and fired as though that was what they were meant to do, what they were designed for.

And Laurel’s gliding to her feet, knife still gently held in her hand and her eyes are flicking between him and Martin, wide with fear but grim with determination. She reaches down, grasps the handgun from beside a foot that Frank thinks might be his own and fires two shots into Martin, into his forehead, right at the place where Frank had fired at Laurel all those lifetimes ago, the miraculous shot that wasn’t. He has to look away then, can’t let himself see anymore, not of that, glances away in time to see Laurel, grimly and yet almost casually, almost nonchalantly toss the gun to the side, fling it from her as though now that its terrible task is completed she has no further use of it, can’t see the point to it.

There’s a sudden silence, a sudden stillness in the room, the only sounds the harsh, hiccuping gasp of Laurel’s breath, mingling with his own and its only then in the stillness as thick as syrup that he remembers Chris, the calm and silence allowing his brain to remember something other than Laurel, than trying to figure out what’s happening, keep himself, keep her alive.

He glances around the dingy basement, searching for Chris, searching for him so they can figure out what to do, a way to clean up this mess, salvage this disaster, figure out just what can be done to keep things from going even worse, even more hopelessly doomed.

It takes him one pass and then another over the room before his brain catches up with the things he’s seeing, before he can even comprehend the second body sprawled across the floor, laid out on his back, one arm thrown to the side and the other pressed against the center of his chest, before he even sees the thick tacky blood pooling over, under, around the body, an island in a growing sea of red, spreading, horrible and thick and staining. His brain can only understand things in flashes, in flickering snippets of images like comprehending everything would be too much for Frank’s mind to handle. Chris, shot, those two errant shots from Martin’s pistol as Laurel tried to wrest the gun from his hand colliding with his body, ripping through his body, shredding it like tissue paper, the two shots that Frank didn’t even think about, didn’t even care about.

He’s sinking to his knees before he even realizes he’s moving, dropping to the floor beside Chris, knees already coated in blood, blood dripping from his hands, soaking his skin as he presses his fingers against the hole in Chris’ chest, trying to plug the yawning, gaping void, trying to hold back the tide of blood that still seems to be spilling from the wound.

“Chris,” he chants over and over again, throwing all of his weight against the other man’s chest, trying to stop it, trying to reverse it, this thing that’s ripped through the other man’s body, shattered him, Frank’s brother. “Oh fuck man, please Chris, please.”

He doesn’t know what he’s begging for, doesn’t know what he’s asking the other man or god or himself to do, just wants it all to stop, reverse course, just wants it all to be over. His fingertips leave bloody streaks against Chris’ neck as he feels for the other man’s pulse, tries to find some sign, some fucking minuscule shred of hope that he’s alive, that he’s still breathing or his heart’s still beating or there’s some way, some fucking way to save him, to keep the truth he knows from being real.

“C’mon Chris, please buddy, please, its gonna be ok, just be ok, please, please, please.” Frank’s practically sobbing now, chest so tight he can’t breathe around it, sobs heaving across his skin because there’s nothing under his fingertips, no answering beat of Chris’ pulse against his fingertips, his eyes open and sightless, staring fixed at the ceiling.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Frank breathes out, his breath short and ragged and his hands are still pressing against Chris’ chest, digging at his skin, trying to open him up as though that will fix anything, like the other man is a fucking car and if Frank just pops the hood he can figure out what’s wrong, diagnose and fix the problem and everything will be better, everything will be fine. Except his brother isn't a fucking car and opening him up will only make the problem worse because Frank’s not a fucking surgeon, not even a fucking mechanic and there’s no more blood left for the other man to lose and his eyes are unseeing and his breath is stoppered and there’s no pulse to be felt and he’s dead, he’s dead and Frank didn’t even realize it, didn’t realize it until it was already over and Chris was his brother, his best friend, his partner in all things and he didn’t even try to fucking save him, just let him bleed out all over the floor because he wasn't thinking and didn't realize and was too busy worrying about what he thought he needed to be worried about, the struggle between Laurel and Martin and wasn’t even considering the crossfire, the collateral damage, just worried about the things happening in front of his eyes, stupid and simple and pathetic and now Chris is dead. There’s no other explanation, no other answer. He’s dead and its Frank’s fault.

And then something’s turning him away, something soft and warm again alive pressing against his cheek, carding through the rough stubble of his beard, and his eyes fix on blue, just blue, deep and liquid and shining and the knives of pain and grief slicing through his chest ease, not vanishing but easing, making it bearable, making it so that Frank can breathe, can begin to think again.

“Hey,” a voice says, cool and gentle and slow like honey, the warmth against his face stroking soft against his skin. “You have to leave him. I’m sorry. You have to leave him, leave here. He’s gone. I’m sorry.”

He blinks, wants to turn away, turn back towards Chris, but the blue, churning now with sorrow and fear won’t let him look away. Eyes, he finally realizes, blue eyes, shot through with grey like winter waves. Eyes that belong the the voice that’s speaking to him, eyes that reside in the same body as the fingers tripping along his cheek, his jaw, stroking softly against his skin.

“Hey,” the voice says again, calling out across the vast distance between them. Laurel, some deep, dark part of his brain reminds him. Laurel, with all her heavy, dangerous silence and her sharp, sad eyes and the place inside her that calls to a hidden, secret space deep inside his heart. “Hey please, we have to get out of here.”

Her hand lingers on his face, against his skin, pulling him back to himself, back to earth. “We have to go,” she says again, a tremble running through the steel of her voice like she’s trying to convince herself as much as she is Frank. “They're, they're dead ok. And we have to go.”

“What?” Frank breathes, his eyes drifting away from Laurel’s, pulled to the ruin of Chris’ chest, waiting for it to rise, waiting for him to suck in a breath, sit up laughing breathlessly and tell Frank that it was all just a joke, that he’s fine. But he doesn’t, he won’t and Frank keeps watching, keeps waiting for a breath that never comes.

“We can’t do anything for them,” she tells him gently, hand on his cheek turning his face away, turning his eyes back to her. “Ok? We have to go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know,” she confesses. “But we can’t be here, in this house, with two bodies. Not you and not me. You’re a criminal, a kidnapper. And I’m a murderer.”

“You’re not,” he begins before his throat closes around a sob, before he feels the tears burning against his cheeks.

“Yes I am,” she says sharply, anger rippling across her words like a shadow. “It wasn't about self defense, or not all of it. I wanted him dead.”

“It wasn't just you,” he tells her, certain he won’t be able to give her even an instant of comfort, not about this. He saw the truth of it in her face, she wanted Martin dead, was not going to leave him standing, breathing if there was any chance the man still sought her death and in some ways, Frank thinks, that makes her more a murderer than anything else. But well, he fired first, and there’s half a chance he fired the killing shot, not her, and if its any comfort to her, he’s willing to give it, willing to offer it up to her like a sacrifice.

Laurel just shrugs, doesn’t look convinced but doesn’t turn away, just continues to hold his eyes, soft and depthless. “We have to go,” she says again. “We have to worry about ourselves now.”

“What?”

“We have to make sure we don’t get caught,” she tells him gently, her fingers still lingering against the sharp arc of his cheekbone. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

She’s right of course, though it takes his sluggish, hopeless brain long seconds to comprehend, to realize what they must do, how they must do it to protect themselves, to keep from getting caught, from getting punished for these deaths, for the multitude of other crimes that have followed his trip to Florida, to the two dead bodies leaking the last of their blood over the floor, for his brother, his protector. 

“Go get in the car,” he tells her harshly, throat burning, eyes burning with the effort it takes him not to heave with sobs. “The white one. In the garage. I’ll take care of things.”

“No,” she protests, eyes narrowing and her jaw clenching defiantly. “I can help.”

“Laurel,” he growls.

“I can,” she tells him. “Let me help.”

“Please,” he says, practically begging now, his words tight and thick with sorrow. “Please, I have to.”

She nods, her jaw clenched hard but her eyes softening like melted snow, rocks back on her heels and stands. She holds out her hand to him, coated in blood to her wrist. He doesn’t want to take it, he doesn’t want to ever let her go so he reaches out, clasps her fingers in his and gets to his feet, the blood on his hands, still thick and sticky, mixing with the blood on hers, all of it the same, all of it different till he can’t tell what’s Martin’s, what’s Chris’, until its all just staining his skin, sliding across his fingers and catching underneath his nails and creeping into the crevices, the lines of his palm.

He follows her up the stairs, out into the garage, trails after her like a ghost, like a dog at her heels, silent and obedient. She stops at the car, crosses her arms over her chest and makes no move to get in.

Frank lets her be, doesn’t press the issue just picks up the two heavy jerry cans he bought when he first made it down, bought as an insurance policy against a tragedy he’d hoped would never come to pass, a disaster he’d hoped, by purchasing the cans, to avoid. The gallons of gas were always Frank’s talisman against disaster, buying something as protection against ever needing it, something to clean up, fix, instantly, any problem, mitigate any risk. He buys them so he knows that if he has to, he can burn everything to the ground, destroy all evidence of his crimes, slip free of the noose, slip free of responsibility.

With the cans of gasoline, in five, ten minutes, Frank can destroy anything that would tie him to his crimes, avoid jail, avoid the loss of his freedom. He’s always known this, always made sure the cans are available, tucked safely into the garage of any safe house he has, a charm, a ward against ever needing to use them, against ever having things crumble so completely, so irrevocably that he needed to use them at all.

Until now, until this final, fatal calamity of a job.

He takes one can with him back down to the basement, leaves one in the kitchen besides the stairs, sets the can down heavily against the concrete floor, stares at the bodies for long, long moments, still unable to understand what’s happened, how he’s standing in this basement about to add arson to his list of crimes, Chris, his brother, his oldest, closest friend lying dead against the concrete floor, eyes open and unseeing and fixed, forever, on the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers softly, hand scrubbing across his beard as his breath stutters and catches. “God, Chris, I’m so fucking sorry.”

He knows it doesn’t matter, knows the other man can’t hear him, that he’s talking only to himself, that nothing will ever fix Chris’ death, that nothing will ever make it right, bring him back. But he can’t help himself, can’t keep the words from tumbling from his lips. “I’m sorry. That shouldn't’ve happened, it was a freak fucking accident but I’m so, so goddamn sorry.

I’m sorry I can’t take you back. I’d let your ma bury you right if I could, you know I would. But I can’t. I gotta do this, I gotta make sure nothing comes back on me, on Mauro and the guys. But I’ll tell her,” he whispers around a sob, the tears spilling down his cheeks, streaming from his eyes as his chest heaves with the force of his shuddering breaths. “I’ll tell your ma what happened. So she doesn’t wonder. Not everything, but what I can. I’ll let her know it was fast.”

He laughs then, ironic and bitter, eyes rising to the ceiling and blinking hard and fast against more grief, more tears. “It must’ve been fast, must’ve been pretty damn fast, but not fast enough for you I bet. God, I’m so fucking sorry Chris. I was supposed to have your back, and I didn’t and I dunno what I could’ve done, but I fucked up and I failed you and its my fault. And I can’t even bring you home.”

He throws a long, lingering glare at the jerry can, hating what he has to do, hating what comes next. “I gotta, I gotta leave you here man,” he tells Chris. “I’m sorry. I gotta make sure this can’t come back. I can’t bury you, but I gotta bury this.”

He sighs, wipes angrily at his tears and sucks in a long, deep breath. He picks up the jerry can, unscrews the cap and tips it over, lets a long, splash tumble out and onto Chris’ unmoving chest.

“I’ll pour a better one out for you soon,” he tells the other man, says to the man who was once his brother. “Promise. Once I get out from under all this.”

He lets a little more pour across Chris’ body, then does the same to Martin, barely letting himself look at the second body, sends a few errant splashes throughout the rest of the room, ensuring there’s enough fuel covering that floor that it will consume everything, leave no evidence, no damning telltale piece of DNA that can be traced back to him, to Laurel.

He picks up his novel, forgotten and abandoned and still unfinished, tucks it into the back pocket of his jeans, picks up the blanket from the floor and wraps it around Chris’ body. His foot brushes against the gun, Martin’s he thinks, as he goes, tries to retreat from the basement, toes knocking against the steel of the barrel, sending it skittering a few inches across the floor.

He stares at the handgun, stares at it like its going to turn into a snake, a hamburger, a deck of cards, stares at as he tries to figure out whether Martin would be smart enough to carry an unregistered gun, whether anyone who finds the gun will be able to use it like a road map leading straight back to the people who hired them, just like pulling a loose thread and unraveling the whole thing.

He knows Chris’ is unregistered, the serial number leading to nothing, to nowhere, to a man that never existed, but doesn’t know about Martin, doesn’t know whether the other man would have been so thorough, so careful. The job has gone straight to hell, no salvaging it from catastrophe now, but he knows he needs to clean it up, do what he can to keep himself safe, keep the people who hired him safe. If anything comes back on them, Frank knows, it will come back on him first, he’ll get sacrificed so that other people can remain free, can continue their lives while he rots behind bars again. He’s always known it, that he’s just a pawn, will be the man who takes the fall if anything goes south, and that means too, that he controls his own destiny, his own continued freedom. Its up to Frank to make sure he cleans up completely, that he leaves no loose ends, nothing that can lead back to him, he’s the one that ensures his freedom, controls his fate. He knows he won’t fail. He can’t go back to that place, can’t go back to losing his freedom.

So he takes Martin’s gun, sticks it in his waistband, leaves Chris’ behind, certain the flames will burn off his prints, any evidence of his involvement with the weapon.

He lets the last of the gasoline coat the stairs, tosses the jerry can down into the basement behind him. In the kitchen he scrubs the sticky drying blood from his hands, gets as much from his skin as he can, coats the steel in bleach he finds under the sink when he’s done so there’s no trace of the blood. He goes to his bedroom, stuffs all his things into his backpack, careful to leave no trace of his presence in the house. He leaves his phone on the bedside table, ready for it to be burned in the coming fire. Frank’s halfway back to the kitchen when he turns around again, heads to Chris’ room and grabs the other man’s pack as well, slinging it over his other shoulder, unwilling to leave the only things he has left of his brother behind.

Frank grabs the second jerry can, pours out the can throughout the house, the bedrooms, the kitchen and living room, careful to soak the bedding, the curtains, everything that will catch fire easily, will already be flammable and ready to destroy the house, ready to let the fire consume the house, the bodies, every last remnant of evidence, every last lingering remains of this awful fucking job, this awful fucking crime.

He rifles through the front pocket of Chris’ pack, finds a lighter, as he knew he would, resists the temptation to flick it on, test out the flame before he’s ready, before he wants to use it, start an inferno he won’t be able to control.

The acrid, sour smell of gas burning in his nostrils, in his lungs, Frank retreats back towards the garage, rips the title page from his novel and holds it to the lighter, flicking it on.

The lighter flames, dancing softly in some unseen breeze and after a moment the page catches. Frank sucks in a long, slow inhale, wishing it were different, wishing he could avoid this, this final, terrible act in a week of nothing but terrible acts. But he can’t and he knows it and he’s crying again, fat dripping tears that slide down his cheeks, splatter against the floor, but he crouches down, lets the burning paper touch against one of the pooling rivers of gas.

Suddenly half the kitchen ignites, the gas catching fire and spreading, almost faster than his mind can process, than his eyes can follow. He knows he doesn't have time to think about it, doesn’t have time to watch the spread, and yet, Frank lingers, watching more and more of the kitchen catch fire, watches the fire spread and the heat build and the smoke begin to fill the room.

And then there’s a hand snaking into his, tugging him backwards, both gentle and insistent.

“Hey,” a voice says, and it too is gentle and insistent, tugging firmly at Frank’s mind, seeking his attention. “Hey we gotta go.”

The hand tugs him backwards and this time, Frank goes, willingly, obligingly, follows the soft tug of the hand against his, stumbles out into the garage, blind and deaf and dumb, just cattle being lead around, numb and broken.

The hand guides him into the car, the passenger seat, sits him down and shuts the door softly.

And then the hand is slipping into the driver’s seat, slipping beside him and turning the key in the ignition, setting the car rumbling to life.

Laurel, his brain tells him as his eyes slide to her good hand clenched around the steering wheel, fingers long and thin and clenched so tightly around the plastic they’re white and bloodless. Laurel, his brain tells him though he can’t understand what she’s doing driving the car, why she’s still there with him, why she hasn’t run screaming into the street for help or fled back to her house and her father and her life, why she’s still there, with him, driving slowly down the street, her jaw clenched and her eyes hard, flicking rapidly between the road and the rear view mirror, like she’s expecting something to come after them, try and stop them, like Martin’s broken bloody corpse is going to come stumbling down the street after her, drag her back to the house to be consumed by flames, back to the house where she was supposed to die.

He doesn’t know why she’s there, why she hasn’t left him, abandoned him, why she isn't halfway to the nearest police station, or halfway back home, concocting some story of her escape, some way to explain her miraculous resurrection. He knows she could, know she’s more than capable of doing that, leaving him behind to face whatever’s coming, clean up this whole horrible mess. And he doesn’t know why she hasn’t. All he knows is that she’s here, with him, still, flinching now as there’s something like an explosion behind them and a fireball rips through the house, flames tearing through it like its made of matchsticks, of kindling, consuming the house, rendering it down to nothing, destroying all evidence of the terrible secrets it holds, the death and the pain and the terrible terrible agony.

Laurel sucks in a breath, lets it out, harsh and ragged but nothing else changes in her face and she continues to drive, just a tick over the speed limit, so, so casual as though nothing bothers her. Frank keeps his eyes on her face though, watches her gaze drift, again and again to the rear view like a compulsion, like she remains chained and tethered to the basement where she was kept, uncertain that she shouldn’t still be there, trapped and bound within the cinderblock walls, uncertain that she shouldn't have ended there. Her eyes linger on the view behind her, the view of the now flaming house, as though if she looks away it will all vanish, as though if she takes her face from the sight of her escape it will be taken away and she will be back in the basement, just another body being consumed by flames in the darkness.

Frank though, Frank can’t bring himself to look back, that one first look enough, too much, seeing the flames licking across the roof, bursting through the windows, tongues of flame fanning hot and fast against the night as smoke rushes up to meet the stars. That one glance was enough, makes him nearly sick with it, tasting the burn of gas at the back of his throat, and the feeling of thick, choking smoke raging across his lungs, tearing across his skin, his heart, nausea and grief battling for dominance in his blood. He watches the fire through Laurel, through the subtle play of muscles in her face, her eyes, her mouth, watches the fire build and grow as it recedes further and further into the distance through the subtle shifting of her face like sand swirling across the desert.

She drives, silent and unmoving and Frank lets the darkness wrap around him, lets the darkness and the silence cloak him, shelter him as they go until there’s no longer any evidence of the fire, until the tight, hard anger slides from Laurel’s face, slips from her eyes. He lets the darkness slip around them both, around the car, twine around their limbs, silky and soft, until Frank can almost pretend that the shadow of the fire, of the things the fire destroyed no longer haunt Laurel’s eyes, no longer linger behind her gaze, heavy and strangling, until he can pretend the things that wrap around them, silent and sweet are a comfort, a gentle caress and not an anchor, not a vicious, cutting net, a web, a strangling noose.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Laurel is, once again, a champ at handling her shit when things go to hell, Frank should probably take a few pointers, and the two of them try pretty hard to figure out what tf they do now...

They drive. Frank doesn’t know where, doesn’t know why, doesn’t know for how long, just knows that the highway continues to roll past the car, the darkness slip past his window like liquid smoke. But then Laurel suddenly stops the car, slams on the brakes, Frank pitching forward against the dashboard, hand out to brace himself.

“Where’s the guns?” she asks, voice frigid, nearly a growl, turning to face him as her eyes flash and burn, an echo of the fire still lingering in the blue of her gaze.

“The guns?” Frank echoes, tongue numb and sluggish in his mouth.

“The guns,” she repeats, an edge creeping into her voice now, sharp enough to cut glass. “Did you bring them?”

He nods. “Chris’ I left,” he tells her. “Its not traceable. I didn’t know about the other, so I took it.”

She holds out her hand expectantly and Frank pulls the gun from his waistband, hands it to her. Laurel’s jaw tightens as the metal brushes against her skin, and Frank can feel the sudden stiffness bloom across her skin. But she otherwise doesn’t react, just takes the gun and wrenches the door open, goes out into the night.

Frank watches her, numbly, walk a few feet off past the shoulder, hurl the gun from her with all the force he knows she can muster, fling it into the canal edging the roadway and then stand, her good arm hugging tight against her body for long moments. He wants to go to her, wants to wrap his arms around her, blanket her with his body, wants to let her slip against him, loose and easy, wants to go to her and let her share some of her burdens with him, wants to take some of the weight from her shoulders. Suddenly she hunches over, doubles over, her body shaking and shuddering, vomiting onto the sand, overcome with horror, overcome with everything she’s had to face.

He wants to go to her, but he knows, can tell from the cast of her shoulders, her spine, that she doesn’t want him, doesn’t want his touch, his presence. In this moment, he knows, she needs to be alone. He watches her instead, watches Laurel stand and face the water, turn her face to the sky before he sees her sigh, body heaving with it, sees her spine stiffen and straighten and steel come back into her blood, sees her wrap herself in iron and ice, give herself the strength to make it through these next few hours.

She comes back to the car, sits heavily beside him, lets out another slow breath. “Ok,” she exhales, scrubbing a hand across her mouth. “Ok, so its gone.”

He nods, throws a long glance back towards the canal, hopes its true.

Laurel must notice his glance because she gives him a crooked, rueful smile, sheepish and uncertain. “Or, I mean, I hope it is.”

“They're both gone,” he agrees as she starts the engine again, pulls back out onto the highway, again driving smoothly and casually, nothing like fear, like panic in the movements of the car but saturating every pore, every atom of her body, worry and pain bleeding through her eyes, her skin, uncontrolled and uncontained.

He doesn’t know for how long they continue like that, minutes or hours, but eventually Laurel pulls off the highway, pulls into a parking lot, killing the engine.

“Out,” she tells him, voice tight and clipped.

He nods, pulls the door open, meek and compliant, a slave to Laurel, to the things she tells him.

“You have cash?” she asks him as he steps out of the car, breathing in the cool night air, sucking it deep into his lungs, trying to settle his heart, settle the terrible clench in his throat.

He nods again.

“Get a room,” Laurel tells him. He must throw her a look, confused still, so fucking lost because her lips twist into a scowl. She throws a little nod to somewhere behind him and Frank turns around, sees the shining flickering of a fluorescent sign, a motel, he realizes, they’ve pulled into a motel parking lot and Laurel is instructing him to get a room.

He nods a third time, automatic now, pauses, waits for her to follow.

“I can’t go in there,” she tells him, looking down.

His eyes fall too, take in the blood spattering her face, coating her hands, her bruised and battered face and her left arm hanging limply at her side, clearly broken, clearly needing treatment she hasn't gotten.

“Yeah,” Frank rasps. “Right.”

He’s mostly cleaned himself up, though his pant legs are still stained at the knees with drying blood that looks mostly like mud in the dim light, reminds himself he’ll need to burn his clothes in the bathtub as he trudges to the motel office.

He gets a room off the bored looking kid manning the desk, trudges back out with the key clenched tight in his palm, cutting against his skin, half expecting that Laurel will be gone when he comes out, will have vanished into the night again after she repaid any sliver of kindness he offered her with kindness of her own.

She’s still there though, leaning against the car, glaring furiously down at her feet, her uninjured arm still wrapped tight around her body like she can protect herself, keep pain and fear from touching her.

Laurel glances up at the shuffle of his feet across the pavement, at the pebbles that skitter under his shoes, her eyes distant with deep, crushing hurt, dark and shadowed. Her lip is bitten raw, swollen and he thinks the broken skin at the corner of her mouth has begun to leak blood again, a bead bubbling and beginning to slide towards her jaw.

Before he can help himself, Frank reaches out, one hand cupping her elbow, drawing her to him, their chests nearly brushing, his other hand rising, rising and sliding across her lip, catching at the blood and feathering across her bottom lip, thumb catching at the soft, perfect flesh.

He doesn’t know why he does it, half expects Laurel to flinch back, flinch away, the thing that hummed and pulsed to life between them in the basement now a spell that’s been shattered and broken, pierced through by reality, by life, by the two dead bodies now consumed by flames. And still, she eases into his touch, doesn’t move a single millimeter and yet, Frank can feel the way her body calls out to his, responds to the yearning of his flesh for hers, the things in him irrepressibly, unendingly drawn to her, like she’s a sprout, shooting up through the new soft earth seeking the sunlight, the air, the cooling rain like she craves Frank’s skin.

“Got the last one,” he tells her, holding up the key in the inches between their bodies. “Who’da thought off ramp motels got so popular.”

Laurel’s mouth twists, though Frank can’t tell whether she intended to smile or frown. “Everyone must be on the lam too.”

“Good,” Frank says, flashing a cocky grin at her, a grin he knows doesn’t reach his eyes. “Let em keep the cops busy.”

She rolls her eyes, huffs softly.

“What’re we doing Laurel?” he asks her, voice low, careful not to draw any attention in the small lot.

Her eyes narrow. “Not getting caught,” she says warningly.

“But why?” he presses urgently. “You don’t need to be here. Nothing’s gonna come back on you. I won't let it.”

She shakes her head, eyes sliding towards their feet. “Not yet,” she says, voice stiff. “I need to put some distance between that fire.”

“There’s no connection,” he insists, stepping forward again, stepping into her space and speaking low into her ear, breath brushing against the column of her throat, sending goosebumps rippling across her skin like waves. “I promise, no one’s gonna come looking for you. You’re in the clear.”

Laurel shakes her head again. “Let me have this, please,” she whispers, head bowing forward, her hair brushing against his chin. “I can’t go back there right now. Not tonight. Not yet.”

“Ok,” he agrees, lips ghosting against her hair. “Ok, no worries.”

She wraps her hands around Frank’s, takes the keys from his fingers and flips them around in her hand. “How’d you light the fire,” she asks him. “Back there?”

“Lighter,” he says slowly, drawing out the syllables, unsure why she’s asking him that.

“You still have it?” she murmurs.

Frank nods, fishes it out of his pocket and offers it up to her.

“I need to burn these,” she explains, gesturing down at her bloody clothes. “Yours too.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, his mind fixating on the details, on the simple, boring steps of getting through the next five minutes, the next hour, planning and thinking through contingencies and possibilities and able to forget about all the other things that swirl around him, death and broken wrists and choking, burning gasoline. He has a problem to focus on, turn his mind to so that he no longer plays the shots, the two errant, accidental, ignored shots into Chris, the three he sent careening into Martin's chest like a flickering movie, over and over through his mind, the scenes stuck on repeat endlessly playing behind his eyes. If he focuses on this, on the simple task of getting himself, getting Laurel through the next few hours, keeping them safe and keeping them free, he doesn’t have to focus on the bursting blood, on Laurel’s bared teeth and the shattering of Martin’s skull, instead he can turn his attention to erasing all of that, erasing all evidence of what happened in the basement, the terrible crimes, the terrible pain. “If you wanna shower, I’ll burn everything afterwards. You uh, you need me to grab you something? There’s probably a Walmart down the road.”

She looks down at her bloody clothes, the bloody streaks along her skin and when she looks up again Laurel’s eyes are glittering with tears. “Yeah,” she nods. “Ok. Please.”

“Ok,” he echoes, giving her what he hopes is an encouraging smile and holding out his hand to her. “Here, I’ll trade you keys, yeah?”

She pulls out the cars keys, presses them into his palm, plucks the lighter from his fingertips, then turns away, heads towards the room.

Frank watches her go, watches Laurel trudge through the parking lot, shoulders bowed with pain but something strong, something hard as diamonds setting her spine rigid and straight and regal. He can’t begin to guess at her intentions, the reason she’s still there, with him, can’t begin to think of what she’s doing besides simply surviving, and all he knows, all he comprehends is that she’s there, with him, for a few more moments at least.

He has no phone, can’t look up the location of a Walmart, but he drives a few minutes down the road, away from the highway, finds a Target. He pulls into the nearly empty parking lot, trudges towards the store. He’s nearly inside the store when he sees it, shot through with veins of rust like arteries, battered and weathered but still in working order he thinks, still functional. A pay phone. He pauses, slows his pace then stops completely, stares at it, transfixed as the urge continues to grow.

He could solve this, solve all of this, now, here, with one phone call, solve everything and be halfway back to Philly by the time anyone realizes his connection. He could pick up the phone, keep his face hidden and place a simple call. He could call 911, let them know Laurel’s location, give them just enough information to make them interested, send a squad car over to the motel. They’d find her, take her to the hospital, ask her a couple questions that he knows she’d refuse to answer, take her back to her father after a few hours. That would be the end of that and he would have done the right thing, the selfless thing, done what was best for Laurel.

Frank takes a couple steps towards the phone, fingers itching with the desire to grasp the receiver, place the call. But he doesn’t, and he won’t. Its what’s best for Laurel, it’s the right thing to do and yet he can’t, he can’t stomach the idea of leaving her yet, of having that be all there is, all there is of him and her and the thing between them. Plus, he tells himself, though it’s a flimsy excuse, a weak excuse, he doesn't even remember the room number at the motel, the name of the motel, wouldn’t be able to give anything but disjointed details to the dispatcher. And, no matter whether it’s the right thing to do or not, no matter if its better in the long run, Laurel told him she needed the evening, needed more time and he’s been a slave to her whims, a dog following his master’s commands, even from the first, and he won’t disobey her now.

So he gives a last lingering glance at the beat up payphone, lets himself focus once again on the task at hand, at the things he must do in the next minute, in the next hour, takes a deep, shuddering breath and goes inside.

He thinks again about not going back to the motel as he leaves the store, but finds himself moving automatically, instinctively, finds himself back in the motel parking lot before he really even has conscious thought of it, like a salmon drawn upstream, like a bird drawn south. He tells himself its because he doesn’t know the area, doesn’t know where he’s going and its somewhere around 3:00 a.m. and he’s exhausted and frayed and feels about halfway between crying and vomiting, feels punch drunk and fragile, like cracks have been splintering along his skin, knows that’s only half of the truth.

He tells himself to stop, to find another payphone, to go and fix this, set it right, finally. But he doesn’t and he won’t.

Instead, he simply grabs his bag from the car, goes and toes the door to the room open, bags held in his hand.

Laurel’s sitting on the bed when he pushes the door open, wrapped in a towel, another hanging over her head like a tent, sitting there stiffly, her spine straight and her knees close together and her eyes fixed distantly on the far wall.

She turns towards him as he steps into the room. “Don’t,” she calls out, eyes hard.

He freezes, halfway through the door, eyebrows raised. There’s another towel spread across the floor in the threshold, Laurel’s shoes tucked into one corner.

“You want my shoes off huh?” he asks, taking in the sight of the shoes and the towel, taking in the sight of Laurel.

She nods as he toes them off, his socks too, sets them gently beside hers, shuts the door softly behind him. “There’ll be blood in the treads. We need to get rid of them too. Or bleach them. Something.”

He nods, stomach sinking. “Yeah.”

She pulls the towel from around shoulders, exposing long inches of creamy skin, pale and perfect until his eyes are drawn to the bruises, black and sickly green along the rise of her collarbone, blood blooming beneath her skin, the swirl of colors and the sharp unnatural jut of bone setting his stomach tilting and churning.

Laurel tosses him the towel then, seemingly ignoring his stare, the way he gawks at her, her body. “Get rid of your clothes,” she tells him. “Anything with blood.”

“Here?” he asks, eyebrows lifting and a slanted, cocky smile moving across his lips, feeling strange and unfamiliar on his face, like a pair of jeans that once fit perfectly, now hanging limp and loose on his frame, the way the smile moves his jaw, his lips almost uncomfortable now, almost chafing his skin.

She nods.

“Isn't it a little soon to be trying to get me naked?” he quips though there’s nothing teasing in his words. Instead they come out flat and tired, like he’s reciting a script he doesn’t believe in, reciting words someone handed to him in Romanian, uncertain of their meaning. It hits too close, almost, his words, too close to him, to her, to the delicate, battered heart of the thing between them. It feels wrong somehow, to speak them, like reciting the name of god, like edging too close to something sacred, something true and pure with something so profane, it feels like reaching out to touch a masterpiece with blood soaked fingers, feels like scrawling graffiti on something ancient.

Laurel’s eyes narrow fractionally at his words but then she smiles, thinly, but smiles all the same, a little huff of breath passing through her teeth. “Maybe,” she tells him, grin pulling at the split edges of her lip. “But not if you want to avoid tracking blood all over the floor.”

He nods, then unbuckles his jeans, pulls them down his hips, leaves his boxers on. There’s blood coating his knees, his shins, the sticky, drying blood has bled through the fabric, left strange, mottled blooms of blood against his skin, strange scars, stranger echoes. His shirt goes next, drops heavy onto the towel beside his jeans.

He bundles them in his hands, looks up to catch Laurel staring at him, a starving, craving look in her eyes, looking like she wants to consume him, devour him, the black of her pupils nearly swallowing the blue irises, taking a long, gulping breath, trembling and deep.

“Are you,” she begins, a flutter in her voice he can’t help but hear, taking a long, thick swallow he can’t help but see. He notices everything about her, still, even now that he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t know what he’ll do when she’s no longer there, no longer the sun around which he orbits. “Do you need a shower?”

He looks down at his stained shins, nods. “I think so.”

“My stuff’s in the tub, you can stick it in the trash can,” she tells him, turns her eyes back to the wall like the conversation is over, like she can’t see any other reason to continue acknowledging his existence.

“We’ll go ahead and burn everything when I’m done,” he finishes, stepping off the towel, stepping into further into the room, his bare feet catching against the carpet.

“Yeah,” she agrees, hollowly. “There’s probably some bleach in the supply closet down the hall. Not as good as gas, but it’ll do the trick.”

“Yeah, that’ll work,” Frank agrees, passing by her on the way to the bathroom, holds up the bag of clothes, offers it out to Laurel. “I uh, got you stuff. I guessed your size, but uh, I think it’ll be ok. Think I got close,” he’s babbling now and he knows it, too close to her, too close to the inches and miles of skin she’s bearing, the inches and miles of skin he’s exposed, his head thick and foggy with her.

The edge of his knee brushes against hers as he passes and its like the world narrows only to the place where their skin meets, all the places it doesn’t, his only awareness their bodies, Laurel’s and his. Its like he can feel every cell, every atom in the places where his skin slips against hers, calling out to her, wanting more, needing more, craving just to be consumed, utterly, by her. Frank wants to turn, wants to peel the towel away, press his against her body until he can feel every part of her under his hands, until he maps her like a new continent, learns her peaks and valleys and rivers and forests, until he learns the secret, hidden places too, the places that can’t be put on any map, the secret hidden heart of her. He wants to press his lips into the hollow of her throat, slide his teeth along the ridge of her undamaged collarbone, chart the gasps and sighs he can pull from her, compose a symphony, an aria with only the sounds he can create in her, a whole new instrument, a whole new form of music.

But he doesn’t, he won’t because he wants her, craves her, but he can’t have her, shouldn't have her. She’s too young and she’s too broken and hurt and too powerful, too perfect for Frank to ever be allowed to touch her in the base, venal way he wants. He hears her gasp at the feather light brush of their skin, sees her eyes darken with what he knows is want, and yet he can’t, he won’t, because Frank may be a terrible person, may be a horrible, violent, shitty excuse for a human, and he’s done terrible, painful things, done them to Laurel, but he’s not that bad, won’t ruin her further just because he wants to, just because he could. He’ll save her from himself, save her from the things he can, finally, protect her from.

“Got you jeans and just, y’know, a shirt,” he continues, his voice cracking with the tension in his body, the wanting for the things he can’t give in to. “It’s grey. Basic, sorry, I didn’t really know what you’d want. Um, I got you underwear too, if that’s not too weird. I uh, guessed again, um, a lot. Sorry. And uh, toothpaste, deodorant, all that. I figured you’d want it.”

She hums, takes the bag from his fingers, her skin brushing against his as she does, and Frank thinks that there’s a lingering in her touch, like neither of them can quite pull away like they should, like their skin remains joined, searching the other out, long after they should retreat to their corners. “Thanks.”

He nods, tears himself away from her, tries to slip away, slip into the bathroom where he tells himself he won’t be consumed by thoughts of her, thoughts of the girl sitting feet away, of the miles of pale, perfect skin he wants but can never have.

“Can I ask you something?” she calls out when he’s nearly to the bathroom door.

Frank turns, leans against the doorframe and shrugs, offering her an opening.

“You knew you were kidnapping me. You knew in enough time to rent a house and a car and, I dunno, to stock it or something. Whatever people do with a safe house,” she wavers her good hand through the air dismissively, her eyes hard and flashing. “You had time. So why didn’t you do this, buy me, I dunno, a change of clothes and a toothbrush then? Why was making me miserable so fucking important?”

“I,” he begins, stops. Because there’s no real excuse, no real explanation. Or the explanation is because as much as Frank tried to think of her as a person down there, tried to let her be human, be real, a living breathing thing, he couldn’t. Down in that basement where the only two possibilities were getting paid or killing her, well, he couldn’t let himself think of her as real, as human, a creature with practical needs like clothes and toothpaste and comforts. His brain couldn’t let itself go that far down the road of what that would mean, their having kidnapped her, couldn’t let himself imagine her as anything more than a turtle, needing to be kept alive, fed and watered and making sure she was still breathing. It would have been too much for him, too painful, and Frank’s an asshole, through and through, because he put himself and the needs of his own mind before the things Laurel needed. “I’m sorry.”

She nods, stiffly, like she can hear the confession in his voice. “Doesn’t really matter now.”

“Still,” he tells her. “I tried. To be a good kidnapper I guess, a not so shitty one. And I didn’t really do that, did I? Even though I told myself I did.”

Laurel shrugs. “You did what you could. You’re doing what you can now. Its ok.”

He hates that she’s the one comforting him, reassuring him, because it shouldn't be this way, should be the complete opposite, Frank convincing her that things will be ok, turn out. “I could take you to get that arm set,” he suggests.

“Right now?” she asks, eyebrows raising suggestively and a teasing grin cracking her lips. “Dressed like that?”

“Nah,” he tells her, trying to return her smile. “But once I’m cleaned up. Once we get the clothes burned.”

Laurel shakes her head, glances away from him, almost ashamed. “No. I can’t face that yet. My dad, the cops, all those questions.”

“Alright,” he sighs, though that's not the answer he’s looking for, not the answer he wants to hear. He wants to get her treated, wants her to stop being in pain, wants it for her and wants it for himself, because every moment she’s in pain tears at him as well, makes him ache deeply in his chest, just knowing that she’s suffering makes it want to ease it. “Guess I won’t rush then.”

“Take your time,” she tells him flatly, eyes darting to the wall beyond him. “I’ll be here.”

He nods, trudges into the bathroom, shuts the door softly behind him, tries not to think about the girl sitting just on the other side, tries not to think about the bloody clothes he crushes down into the plastic trash can he finds under the sink, the bundle of blood streaked clothes Laurel left in the far corner of the tub, barely a pile at all. Instead, he pulls some clean clothes from his backpack, shucks his boxers and twists the shower on, steps under the spray, water hot enough it scalds his skin, keeps him from thinking about anything else. As he steps under the water, for the first moment since he entered the basement at five minutes to midnight, hours and lifetimes ago, he thinks only of the pain in his skin, thinks only of the water beating down against his back, not of errant shots and pooling blood and Laurel’s teeth bared like fangs. He’s not so naïve as to think the water will wash away his sins, wash away his pain, but for a few moments at least it lets him think of nothing at all.


	32. Chapter 32

When Frank emerges from the bathroom, showered off and clean, finally, he finds Laurel sitting in the same spot on the bed, spine stiff and rigid, her whole body tight with tension. She doesn’t turn her head as he clicks the door open, just continues to stare, unseeing at the wall. She’s changed at least, slipped on the clothes he brought her, though the towel still lies across her lap and Laurel’s fisted her hands in the thin, rough material. The shirt hangs a little loose, slipping down one shoulder even though he was careful and got a small, exposing the misshapen ridge of her broken collarbone, the thick black bruising along her shoulder, her neck, mottled through with blues, greens and even a bit of yellow near her throat.

“Hey,” he calls softly, running a hand over his beard, nervous as a teenager at prom, nervous as a man facing his execution.

“Hey,” she echoes, turning towards him.

“You tell me where that supply closet is, I can grab something nice and flammable,” he offers, trying for something like an encouraging grin. They can get through this, he thinks, the rest of this terrible night. And after that, well, he doesn’t know what comes after, but he knows they can get through this, can make it through, the two of them, to the dawn.

“End of the hall,” she recites with a long, tired sigh, as though it takes the last ounces of her energy to give him directions. “To the left. Next to the ice machine. If you take the bucket you can hide it in there.”

“Cool,” he nods, grabs the ice bucket and heads out the door, brings back not only bleach but also, almost inexplicably, lighter fluid that he finds tucked in the closet behind some rusting paint cans.

He holds it up with a cheeky little grin when he returns to the room but Laurel barely acknowledges it, barely acknowledges him.

“I’m gonna,” he begins, trails off with a little shrug. There’s no explanation needed, they both know exactly what he’s going to do, unspoken and obvious.

“Ok,” she says, voice still hollow.

“Trust me to do it?” he asks, again attempting to tease her, get her to smile, anything, anything but this strange, vacant distance, like she’s back in the basement trying to retreat from reality to protect herself, protect her fragile heart.

Laurel nods, then falls backwards to lie against the bed, letting out a little hiss of pain as she does, jarring her shoulder as she falls. “Yup.”

He leaves her to it, to her silence, doesn’t push any further, just retreats back to the bathroom and douses all their discarded clothes with the lighter fluid. He realizes a bit too late that he’s left the lighter tucked into the pocket of his jeans, has to fish it out from the soaked pants, wash his hands off so he doesn’t set his skin on fire along with the things he actually wants to ignite.

Frank flicks the lighter on, sets a corner of his t-shirt alight, the whole bundle going up. He watches the fire tear through their clothes until there’s nothing left but ashes. He runs the faucet, washes the last of it down the drain then sprays bleach all around the tub, hopes he’s got rid of any trace of the blood, any trace of that awful basement. He tries not to think of the fire ripping through Chris, or what was left of Chris when everything in him that made him Chris was gone, crackling across his flesh, blistering it, charring it and he can’t let himself think beyond that as the panic in his chest begins to rise, breath tight in his throat and tears beginning to flicker behind his eyes.

He can’t think about anything but the fire, but keeping himself free, keeping Laurel safe, can’t think about anything but destroying what remains of the last things tying them to the house, the basement and the fire and the terrible crimes that brought them all there, brought them all together, the basement where every one of them, Frank thinks, Martin and Chris and Laurel and Frank himself, ceased to be, even though some of them still draw breath.

Except its all he can think of, his mind drawn there, again and again, a compulsion, the more he tries to ignore it the more it intrudes, worms its way into his brain, slips through the cracks and crevices, the gaps he hasn't realized he needed to plug, slips in and stays there, sets up shop, an outpost in the wilderness that will soon be a thriving town.

Frank steps out of the bathroom, finds Laurel still lying on the bed, eyes open and unblinking. “Hey,” he calls out. “I took care of everything.”

“You think we’ll be in the clear?” she asks him, a note of worry undercutting her words.

Frank nods, comes and sits heavily beside her on the bed, careful not to touch her, careful not to get too close, but sits nearby, a few inches between them still, unsure what she wants from him now, where their boundaries stand. “I’ll take care of the car in the morning. Just in case. Make sure it really can’t come back on us.”

Laurel smiles thinly up at him. “Thank you.”

“It helps me as much as it helps you,” Frank points out.

Laurel hums, wraps her hand around his forearm, fingers sliding soft against his skin, then threads her fingers through his, tugs on his hand, tugs him backwards.

He follows the pull of her fingers, slips down against the bed, lies next to her on top of the comforter, their hands still joined, wrists pressed tightly together.

He lies next to her, their bodies separated by inches, by what feels like a thousand years, by a gulf he’s sure they’ll never really be able to breach, too stubborn and too wounded and too wary for either of them to make the leap to the other side.

Frank thinks it may have been possible once, before he shot a Taser into her back, may be possible again in some other, distant universe, but not here, not in this one. In this one, they have those few inches and first degree arson and two dead bodies and three, four, five, six broken bones, he doesn’t even know the count. He doesn’t know the count and she won’t tell him and the gulf between them creeps wider.

He thinks, suddenly, that he could have loved her, once, in this universe, could still love her given half a chance. Frank is certain they still had that half a chance until the moment a bullet ripped through his best friend’s chest, tore through it and left nothing in it’s wake, only death, and Frank didn’t even notice because he’d chosen Laurel. It makes guilt and sorrow tear across his heart like he’s been struck by his own bullet, sharp and piercing, makes guilt fester in his blood.

He’d known Chris since he was eleven, since he was a tiny, terrified creature thrown to the wolves, thrown away. Chris had protected him, Chris had become his family, had sacrificed his time and his affection and sometimes his body for Frank, to keep Frank safe. He’s sacrificed his body again, for what, Frank wonders, for nothing. For a freak fucking accident, a man in the wrong place at the wrong time and now he’s dead, six inches to the left, six inches to the right and it wouldn’t have mattered, those two errant shots wouldn’t matter, would just be little chips against the concrete and not a bullet tearing through his brother’s chest. But its Chekhov’s gun or just bad fucking luck or karma or a test that Frank has failed miserably.

And now, and now, when it counted, Frank failed his best friend, his brother, didn’t even notice the shot until it was too late, didn’t notice because he chose Laurel, this girl he met less than a week ago, who he doesn’t know, not really, who twists him up and turns him round and blinds him, until there’s nothing else he can see, just her, just dark hair and pale skin and blue eyes the color of the ocean. He chose her, when it really counted, over his brother, a man who’d done everything for him, a man who Frank promised he’d have his back, promised he’d protect, promised his loyalty to. They were partners, and then, when it counted, Frank bailed, Frank chose someone else.

He couldn’t help it, couldn’t help himself and that, somehow, is worse, that he didn’t even have a choice in the matter, choosing Laurel not even a choice at all, just an inevitability, a certainty, a immutable law of the universe. The sky is blue, rain is wet, 2+2=4, and Frank will choose Laurel, put Laurel first in every situation, in every life he’ll ever live. Its never been a choice, will never be a choice, and that makes it worse because its not right, its not fair and he should’ve chosen Chris, repaid the years, the decade of loyalty, the decade where Chris was not just his friend but his brother, his father sometimes, his god and his protector, should’ve repaid that with a single moment of loyalty when it counted, a single moment of putting Chris above the things Frank himself wanted.

But he didn’t, and now Chris is dead, the body lying limp and heavy and bloody beside them, another ghost added to the gulf that stretches between them. And Frank, Frank feels guilt and sorrow and something like rage tear across his chest, and relief, so much fucking relief that those two bullets didn’t slice through Laurel, that she ducked from the shot he fired, that Martin’s shot went wide of clipping her chin. He feels only relief, only a gratitude so deep it feels like faith, like worship that she’s alive, breathing and here with him, mere inches away on this bed, close enough to touch and yet light years away. He can’t touch her, not now, not ever, not with so many ghosts between them, staring at them with hollow unseeing eyes and accusations on their silent lips.

And yet, he wants to, wants to with a craving like hunger, ravenous and starving and searching, burning through his blood, his heart, burning behind his eyes and down to his fingertips, a hunger that consumes him with the crackling desire to consume her, to wrap her in his arms and never let her go, desperate and irresistible. He will want her, he thinks, wants her beside him, wants her laugh and her scowls and the sharpness of her tongue and the caution behind her eyes and the silence she uses like shield and sword, and all of her, just all of her, until the day he dies.

“We should sleep,” she murmurs into the night.

Frank nods, certain she sees it even though she doesn’t turn her head. “Yeah.”

He goes to sit up, slip off the bed and onto the floor, tear his body from its nearness to hers though he doesn’t want to, will never want to

“Where you going?” she murmurs, tugging, harder this time, at his wrist, her words slurred with exhaustion, with all the thousand terrible things but an edge creeping into her voice.

“I’ll take the floor,” he says, the hand not twined with Laurel’s still pushing himself into a sitting position, resisting her as best he can. “Just let me have a pillow and one of the blankets and I’ll be good.”

Her fingers tighten around his, and though he could easily break from her grip he won’t, he can’t. “No,” she tells him firmly. “Stay.”

He nods, slides halfway back to the comforter. “Should I get the lights?” he asks, trying for an excuse, any excuse to give himself distance from her, from the dangerous things inside her that call to the deadly things inside him.

Laurel doesn’t respond, simply turns on her side, onto her bad shoulder his brain can’t help but note, sharp little gasp murmuring between her lips but she reaches out and flicks off the bedside lamp, setting the room into darkness.

Frank can feel her roll back towards him as his eyes adjust to the black, feels the dip of the bed as she comes to lie beside him again. “I could’ve done it,” he says as he picks up on the tense lines of pain slashing through the shadows on her face, sharp and jagged.

He can see her nod. “But you wouldn’t’ve come back.”

Frank doesn’t insult either of them by trying to mount a token protest.

“This is,” she says after long minutes that almost convince Frank she’s asleep, her voice distant like she’s addressing someone in the next room. “The first time, I think, since Thursday that I’ve been in the dark.”

He nods. “Probably.”

“It doesn’t feel real,” she whispers, turning her head from him though he can see the silvery streaks of her tears shining in the moonlight. “That any of it happened. Getting...getting kidnapped, getting tortured, killing someone. None of it seems real.”

“We can pretend its not if you want,” he offers, his own sob rising into his throat. He can pretend its not real for her if she wants, he’ll drop her off at her school or her house or on the little running trail where they grabbed her, let her pretend that nothing happened. It’ll be easy, really, because after tomorrow, after the sun rises, after they make sure they’ve cleaned up completely, that nothing’s going to come back on them, that’s what’ll happen anyway, he’ll send Laurel back to her life, somehow, and if she wants to pretend nothing happened, well, it won’t matter to Frank. He’ll be back in Philly, or on the run, somewhere, and he won’t be able to pretend nothing happened, not with Chris dead, not with Martin dead either, but she can, and she should. Its what she deserves, willful ignorance, the comfort of forgetting. If that’s what she wants, he’d do anything for her. He’s going to live with these deaths for her. And yet, he thinks, the hardest thing will be leaving her behind.

“I don’t want to do that,” she tells him fiercely, a sudden anger creeping into her words. “It did and it was horrible, but its cheating to forget. Its pretending it didn’t matter. Well, it did, I may not want it to, but it did matter. I can’t go back to before and…” she trails off then, a gasp stopping her breath. “Oh, oh god, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh my god…”

“What?” he asks, turning to face her, instinctively reacting to her panic, to the sharp slice of panic rippling across her voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Your friend,” she starts, hesitant and stuttering, voice trembling and quaking. “I…I wasn’t even thinking of him, I was just…he was your friend. Not just some body, some problem to be fixed. I was doing the same thing you were, and…he wasn’t a body, he was your friend and he mattered and he, he matters. Still. I’m sorry, I’m…”

“Its ok,” he tries to tell her but his throat closes over the words, stops itself over the lie, can’t go on.

She’s sobbing now too, he can hear the wet inhale of her breath, can see tears dripping fat and heavy down her cheeks. “You loved him didn’t you,” she whispers, wrapping her hand around his wrist, heavy and soft. “He was your friend.”

“He was my brother,” Frank explains, nodding mutely. “He’d taken care of me since I was eleven.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I…” Frank gasps shallowly, blinking back tears and the grief that rises like a tide within him, pulling him under and drowning him, grasping at his legs his arms, trying to draw him away from the shore. “He saved me. Over and over and over again. And I couldn’t save him. I didn’t even notice he was shot. I let him down when it really counted, I fucking failed him.”

“No,” she tells him, voice soft, her fingers trailing down across his forearm and then back up, sliding across his skin in slow, soothing patterns. “No, you didn’t fail him. You couldn’t do anything. It just…it just happened.”

“I should've stopped it,” he confesses, feeling tears slip across his cheeks, slide down the curve of his cheekbone, sobs ripping through his chest. His breath is coming fast, too fast, heart hammering in his ears and there’s not enough air in the world, not enough air to suck into his lungs. “I should’ve done something. And he’s dead now and, and I failed him. I was supposed to have his back. Like he always had mine. I failed. I always fuck up. Everything. I fucking failed him and he was dying and I wasn’t even paying attention, wasn't even there with him. God, he…he died alone, he died alone and he didn’t have to and its my fault.”

“Its not your fault,” Laurel tells him, voice a whisper, fingers tangling with his, tightening around his hand. “Its not your fault. It was a freak accident. Like getting hit by a bus, struck by lightening.”

“Its not,” Frank growls, blinking back his tears, sucking in a long, deep breath and trying to turn his sorrow, his guilt into anger, into rage. He wants to run away, go run to the car, run back to Philly, somehow stop the conversation because he can’t think about it anymore, can’t think about how fully, how completely he failed Chris, how he’ll never be able to make it right, make it up to the other man, never be able to repay the debt he owed the other man, never make up for the ten years Chris protected him, never make up for Frank’s long, horrible moment of selfish failure. He turns away from her, though he still wants to keep her hand in his, lets out a ragged, tearing sob when he has to drop her fingers, curls his body tight against the shaking in his limbs, trying to keep himself from breaking apart, shattering and spilling into a thousand pieces, sharp and fine as dust, tries to keep himself from drowning. “Its not like that at all. I should’ve noticed, should've been there for him, even if I couldn’t save him. I should've been there.”

“He knew you loved him, I know he did,” Laurel tells him, words like a promise, a vow, like she’s simply commanding the universe to make it so. He knows that if anyone can command the universe, it’s Laurel and yet, and yet, he doesn’t know, doesn’t know if its true, if Chris ever really knew how much Frank cared for him, how much like a brother, a father the other man had been to Frank, how Frank would have done anything, anything in his power for Chris, to save him, ease his hurt. “I could see it, he knew you were brothers.”

He lets out another long, slow sob, can’t stop the whimper that slips from his lips because he didn’t, Chris didn’t know it, because Frank never told him enough, never made it clear, never gave the other man the credit he was due, never said the things he knew to be true, the things that were true, the way Frank loved Chris as a father, a brother, as his savior. And now he can’t, can never tell Chris how he’s only alive because of him, how he’d never be the man he is without Chris, how he loves him, more even than his own brothers by blood, his own sprawling family who never really can understand him, the things he’s done, the things that have been done to him.

He sobs again and then Laurel is following him onto her side, turning on her side and slipping close against his skin, turning tight against his back as she somehow throws her broken, shattered arm over his chest, hand pressing over his heart, brushing over the space where the beats tattoo against her fingertips.

Frank knows she shouldn't get so close to him, knows its dangerous and it brings her far, far closer to the thing he knows they should avoid, but then she presses her lips against the back of his neck, against the place where his spine begins, soft and slow, her mouth whispering against his skin and Frank can think of nothing else, can think only of the featherlight brush of her lips against his spine.

He sighs, feeling some of the strung tight tension slip from his shoulders, recede out like the tide. Laurel just presses herself closer to him, as close as she can, wraps her arm tighter around Frank’s shoulders and hooks her leg over the crook of his hip, tangling her ankle between his knees, so close he’s no longer sure where his body ends and Laurel’s begins, like they’re a single creature now.

He reaches out, takes her fingers in his, threads them together over his heart while Laurel nuzzles her nose against the space behind his ear, his hairline, peppering kisses along his skin, and Frank somehow feels his body unfold, loosen with every passing moment. With her so close against him, with her skin pressed against every inch of him, the feel of her, the scent of her overwhelms him, short circuits his ragged brain until all he knows is her, until she becomes the only thing that exists in the world, nothing mattering beyond the soft slide of her skin, the whisper of her body over his. He can let himself, for quick seconds that become longer and longer, forget about that basement and Chris and the other dead body, forget about flames and the cold press of a gun against his palm, forget about zip ties and broken fingers and bruises that bloom along pale, pale skin like a strange, awful watercolor.

But reality intrudes, as it always does, and Laurel’s body only lets him forget for quick, flashing seconds, never long enough to truly forget, never long enough for the sharp pricks of pain to truly ease and the tears continue to slip down his cheeks.

“I wanna tell you something,” she whispers against his skin, her voice trembling with something that doesn’t quite seem like fear, seems more like she’s trying to summon the right words, the perfect, magic words to speak to him, like there’s only one correct way to tell him this thing she wants him to know and she’s searching for it, digging through a mountain of phrases and words and sentences that are all wrong, all incorrect. “Your friend, Chris, he gave me his knife. When he lined me up against the wall.”

“What?” he whispers, breath going ragged and hollow, no air coming in, no air going out. He had wondered, at the time, how Laurel had gotten the knife into her hands, how she’d managed to lift it off of Chris, had somehow simply let his brain accept the idea that it was magic, pure and simple, or something inexplicable, had found no other explanation that was able to make any damn sense. And then, after Chris, after the fire and this, this flight to the little roadside motel, well, he hadn’t thought about it again because Laurel was alive and that was the only thing that really truly mattered.

“He gave me his knife,” she says again and he can hear the catch in her throat, like she’s speaking through tears. And then he feels the drip of those tears against the back of his neck, his shoulders, slow and hot against his skin. “Told me I should duck.”

“He gave you his knife?” Frank repeats, because yeah, that’s exactly something Chris would do, exactly the kind of decision he would make if he felt that he owed Laurel something, felt that it wasn’t right that she was being executed for her father’s failure to pay. Its exactly the sort of thing Chris would do to protect someone, exactly the sort of thing he would’ve done for Frank back when he was in juvie, small and scared and confused, would stick his neck out and take matters into his own hands, give Laurel the means to save herself when his own hands were tied. Giving Laurel his knife, telling her to duck is such a Chris thing to do it makes Frank sob harder, because Chris is, was a good man, didn’t care about what it would mean if Laurel was left alive because he knew it was the right thing, knew it was right that she survived and so gave her the means to save herself, gave her the means to achieve that survival. He gave her the means to survive, to save herself and gave her his knife and told her to duck and Laurel survived but Chris is dead. And god, god, Frank doesn’t know how that’s even possible, doesn’t know how it is that Chris is dead and Laurel is alive. He doesn’t get it, but he knows she’s alive only because of Chris, know he’s only alive because of the other man as well, and, he thinks, there’s no justice in the world, no rightness if Frank is left alive and Chris is dead.

“Yeah,” she confirms softly as more tears slip against his neck. “Slipped me the knife as he put me up against the wall. Told me you’d count to three in your head. That I should duck on two. He saved me. He saved me.”

“He was a good man,” Frank gasps out, because he can’t understand, can’t comprehend how Chris is dead and Laurel’s alive. He knows Chris saved her but she was lined up against the wall, and he shot at her and she should’ve been dead and instead its Chris who wound up dead against the concrete floor, like he traded his own life for Laurel’s in some sick, awful transaction. “Better than me.”

Laurel hums, presses her cheek against his shoulder blades, presses her skin closer against his like she knows he needs it, knows he needs her closer, always, knows he wishes he could simply become a part of her and vanish from the world. “He was a man,” she allows and Frank can hear a tension in her voice he can’t yet feel across her skin, like she’s trying her best to keep Frank from noticing, trying her best not to let her body betray her thoughts. “And he did some good things. He did some bad things too.”

Frank nods, sucks in a long wet breath because its true and he has to admit its true. Chris wasn't always a good man, wasn’t always a bad man either, but he tried to be good where it counted, where he could be and it was a good thing that got him killed. It was a bad thing too, Frank has to admit after a long moment trying to pretend otherwise, trying to lie to himself. It was a bad thing too that got him killed, kidnapping Laurel in the first place, going along with the plans when things were clearly going off the rails. It was a good thing and a bad thing and a freakish accidental thing and now he’s dead. Chris was a man and now he’s nothing. “He was a man,” he repeats.

“He was. And I know its not ok,” she whispers against the shell of his ear and he can hear the quaver in her voice, like she’s holding her own emotions at a distance, in check so she can help him, comfort him. “I know you wanna change everything, go back in time. But you can’t. You just have to keep moving forward.”

“That what you gonna do?” he asks, an edge to his voice, trying to make her angry, trying to hurt her like he’s hurting. He makes a move to turn away, pull out of her arms, but a halfhearted one, barely more than a hitch to his shoulders, a little shudder that barely puts any distance between them. He doesn’t want to move away, doesn’t want to leave the comfort of Laurel’s arms even if he’s angry, even if he’s hurting so bad he doesn’t know what to do, even if all he wants to do is lash out, make her hurt like he’s hurting, cause pain so someone else can feel what he feels. Even then he still wants her, wants the comfort she brings him, the things her body does to him. “Just move forward like nothing’s wrong?”

“Of course not,” she snaps and he feels the tension radiating from her body, arcing through her body like lightening, feels the sudden anger heating her blood. He expects her to pull away, expects her to roll to her back, away from him, but she doesn’t, just keeps Frank’s back pressed tight against her chest, keeps her hand clasped over his heart. “I’m going to move forward like plenty of things are wrong. And they are. But I’m gonna go forward anyway. What other choice is there?”

“There’s got to be something easier.”

“Death,” she growls against his neck, sinking her teeth into the skin of his shoulder, biting down until he’s not certain that she won’t break skin. He welcomes the pain, welcomes the heat of her anger because it lets him feel something, lets something intrude against the cold numbness of his grief, his guilt. “Death’s the only easier. And I don’t want to fucking die.”

He nods blinks back the threat of more tears. He knows, all too well, just how badly she wants to live, just how stubbornly, how fiercely she clings to life, refuses to give into anything that will take her closer to death, saw just how completely she fought the death they all brought for her, saw how she fought against death and won. “I know,” he murmurs. “I saw.”

Laurel nods against the back of his neck, lips against his spine. “What about you? Is that what you want? To give up? Die, just because its easier? Less painful?”

“No,” he breathes, shaking his head. “But I don’t want to hurt.”

“It’ll get easier,” she promises, fingers ghosting over his heart like she wants to sink her hands beneath his flesh, tear him open and expose the things inside him, muscles and bones and organs, wants to cradle his bloody heart in her hands like a tiny fragile thing, wants to hold it close against her body or take it into her own cracked chest until Frank regains the strength to take it back, the strength to feel again, carry his damaged aching heart in his own chest again. “It will. Someday. And even if it doesn’t, there’s still nothing better. Even if it hurts.”

“Even if it hurts,” Frank echoes.

She nods, cheek pressing against the space between his shoulder blades and Frank can feel the slick slide of her tears against his spine. “Nothing’s ok, not really,” she whispers and for a moment Frank wonders if she’s speaking more to herself than to him. It doesn’t matter, he knows, doesn’t matter at all, they're one and the same now, all twisted, damaged hearts and fierce, dogged strength. “But someday it’ll be easier, even if its not better.”

“And I just gotta get to there,” he finishes, though his words sound more like a question than anything else, sound more like a pleaded, searching request.

Laurel exhales, soft and warm and sweet and he thinks that might be all the answer she will give him, all the answer she’s able to give him, knows that’s as good as a yes. “You will,” she tells him, certainty, conviction lacing through her voice like she’s looking into tea leaves or seeing some far off future, pronouncing distant reality with all the certainty of fact.

The fingers of her broken hand somehow press tighter over his heart, almost without moving at all, and she presses another kiss to the back of his neck, just below his hairline. Frank focuses on the slow thump of her heart against his skin, the beat almost in time with his but just a little faster, like Frank’s always a half second behind her, always following, the two of them almost perfect and yet hopelessly, fatally flawed. He focuses on the warm fan of her breath against his neck, the shell of his ear, the slow, deep cadence of her inhales, on the way he knows, with the certainty of blind faith, that Laurel, Laurel will be alright, will not just make it to ok, but will cross the desert and make it to good, to better. He has faith in that future for her he’s not sure he has in himself, but he thinks that’s ok, he thinks she deserves it, but more than that, she’s earned it. She’s earned the right to see her pain ease, her fear abate; after what’s been done to her, after what Frank’s done to her, he thinks she’s earned happiness or peace, has earned anything, everything she wants.

And Frank, well, Frank’s not sure what he’s earned, what he deserves for this disaster of a week, for the terrible things he’s done, the terrible things he failed to do, doesn’t know whether it earns him heaven or hell or nothing at all. He knows only that if its earned him this, these quiet moments in the dark with Laurel, earned the press of her body against his, the fan of her breath against his neck and the caress of her fingers over his heart, it will have been worth it, whatever comes next, damnation or exile or excommunication by Mauro for what happened, for the unmitigated disaster the job turned into, for letting Chris down, no matter what it brings him, whatever hell is waiting for him with the dawn, whatever guilt and pain and sorrow the darkness is keeping at bay, it will have been worth it for giving him this, these few stolen moments with this girl who he knows he could love in any other universe, thinks he might in this one too.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little bit long cause i couldn't figure out how to break it up, so you get a monster chapter out of it. Last one before the last one :)  
> If you're still on board, drop me a lil somethin, yeah?
> 
> And for those of you wondering about the mysterious tres leches, it puts in an appearance here. (Chekov's cake, yo, gotta fire that gun if you mention it in act II)

He wakes, still tangled in Laurel’s body, legs and hands and fingers knotted together and her chest pressed tight against his back, pressed so close he thinks he can feel the thump of her heart against his, beats finally, flawlessly synced until there is no distinction between their breaths.

She’s so close around his body, chest pressed so tightly against his back that its all Frank can feel, all his brain can process.

She’s shorter than him, smaller than him, but it feels somehow like he’s surrounded in her, cocooned by her. He’s never had someone hold him like this, like he’s the center of the universe, like she simply wants to draw his body into hers, his heart into her chest, and while it makes something like terror rise in sharp little bursts across his skin, at every point where their bodies touch, to be so vulnerable in her arms, it’s a feeling that’s overwhelmed by how much he wants her there, wrapped around him, by how it settles his fear, gentles his breathing and his pounding heart, by how much he simply enjoys her there, with him, like its where she belongs, like their bodies were made to be joined this way.

Its still dark though Frank’s not sure what time it is, whether its closer to midnight or to dawn. He knows the latter is true, wishes it wasn’t. He feels like he hasn’t slept at all, wound tight and stiff and with a hard knot of something settling deep in his chest, setting his pulse pounding with something miles away from fear, that feels, instead, like determination, like certainty. He’s not certain, far from it, but he knows what he must do, what they must do.

He thinks Laurel’s asleep, can feel the deep and even cadence of her breath against his skin, tries his best to stay still, unmoving, nearly unbreathing, so that he doesn’t disturb her, doesn’t think he can bring himself to wake her, bring her back to the world, to all the thousand things that haunt her, stalk her steps, never letting her rest, not truly.

He wants to offer her whatever comfort he can, whatever peace he can, even if it’s a false one, a brief reprieve from the war he wonders if she won’t be fighting until the moment her heart stops, even if it only lets her forget the basement, the snapping of her bones, lets her forget the nightmare she’s been living since he came into her life. So he lets her sleep, lets her have the illusion of dreams, continues to feel the thump of her heart, the slow rhythm of her breathing in the darkness. For the first time since the morning his Taser shot her full of 50,000 volts, he thinks, she can breathe, pressed tight against his skin some of the worry in her bones eases. Nothing is clear, nothing is certain, and yet, with Laurel in his arms, Frank wonders if perhaps they have a way forward, a path through the no man’s land that may keep them both alive, unscathed at the end of all things.

He breathes her in, deeply, reveling in how his senses are full of her, overwhelmed by her, surrounded, completely by Laurel, her warm, sweet scent, the sight of the dark expanse of her hair falling across her shoulder and then the curve of his, the soft sleekness of her hair playing against his neck, the feel of her skin and the play of her soft muscles against his back and the sound of her deep, even breaths, steady and low. He wants to drown in her, wants to wrap himself up in her, sink down into Laurel and burrow himself beneath her skin until they are a single creature, until he becomes her or her him. He wants to tie himself to her, inextricably, irrevocably, forever knot his existence with hers until he cannot escape her.

And yet, he wants to flee, wants to run away, wants to slip out of the bed and out of the room and slip back to Philly, wants to escape her, free her of him, snap the chains that bind them together, free her of the burden that he is, a weight around her ankles, a reminder, with every moment, of the things, the terrible things that have been done to her, the terrible things she’s done, the Taser and the zip ties and the broken, bruised bones, the hours spent with her muscles cramped and burning, and the gunshots, the shattering gunshots, the ones fired at her, the ones Laurel fired herself. He wants to let her escape him, wants to free her of the things he is, the things he represents, all the ghosts that linger behind him.

Even in sleep their hands remain linked, Frank’s fingers covering hers over his heart, trying to keep her as close as possible too, her shin trapped between his knees, and yet he doesn’t want to move, can’t move because this is the closest she’s been and he doesn’t think he can let her go, not now, the thought of letting her go overwhelming his terror at having her so close, practically sinking beneath his skin. 

As he wakes the panic, the fear grows, fear at having her so close, fear at losing her. He shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be letting her get so close, shouldn't be letting this happen, not with this girl he’s hurt so much already, shouldn't be tricking her, conning her into wanting this, wanting to be close to him, tricking her into thinking he’s someone good, someone she wants to be close to. She’s too young, still, and too innocent, too perfect despite everything she’s been through, everything she’s done, despite the dangerous, feral glint in her eye that hints at a wisdom, a maturity far beyond her age. She’s still a girl he’s shattered, completely, torn away from her family and locked her in a basement and allowed others to hurt her, allowed her to be treated like an object, a body. She’s still a girl he’s broken, even if she’s knitted herself back together, even if she’s survived him, come out stronger, he still did that to her, still hurt her, irrevocably, deeply. 

And he can’t take that back nothing he does will ever make up for that. He shouldn't be around her, shouldn't be given the chance to hurt her again, hurt her more. And yet he doesn’t want to let her go, doesn’t ever want to let her go. He’s not sure he even could if he wanted to, a selfish, venal creature only concerned with his own base wants, unconcerned with what’s best for Laurel, what she needs, the things he should do for her to put her first. He can’t resist her, wants her, always, hopelessly, dizzyingly. He thinks, hopes, maybe she wants, needs him with the same desperation as he needs her, like breath, like water.

He hopes, hopes, she can find it in herself to hate him, tear herself away from him, resist the pull between them, resist the spell he casts over her.

Frank’s just beginning to slip into sleep again, just beginning to let unconsciousness take him under when he feels Laurel stir, just a little tremor across her skin, a little hiccup in her breathing before it comes faster again, not fast, but faster.

She stiffens as she wakes, stills, like she’s waiting, holding himself steady, ready, to bolt, to flee, already on edge, on guard, already expecting hurt and pain, betrayal. He remains silent, remains still, lets her come back to herself, come back to the world, lets her feel the way her body surrounds him, covers him, envelops Frank in Laurel.

“Lars?” She asks after long minutes, voice rough with sleep, deep and slow.

He nods, doesn’t trust himself to speak.

“You’re still here,” she murmurs, the edges of her sleep soft voice filled with awe. “You stayed.”

Frank just nods again as her lips ghost against his hairline, her fingers tightening around his.

“Thank you,” she says and he thinks he hears thick tears running through her words.

“I told you I’d stay,” he tells her more vehemently than he intended.

He can feel Laurel’s own nod before silence wraps itself around them both, thick and heavy and choking.

“What do we do now?”

He doesn’t know which one of them spoke, certain only of how little that matters.

“What can we do?” this time he knows she’s the one that speaks. 

“You’ve got to go home,” he tells her, feeling the sudden bloom of stiffness across her limbs, the sudden tight intake of breath. “And I’ve got to fix this mess, tell my people what happened.”

“What does that mean?” she asks, voice tight, her teeth clenched. “What does that mean for me?”

“It won’t come back on you,” he promises around a gasp. “I don’t know what I’ll tell them, but I promise it won’t hurt you. They won’t come after you again.”

“How do you know?” she growls and Frank can feel her body retreat from his, feel her pull back.

Frank shifts in her arms so that he can face her, turns and rolls, careful not to jar her injured arm. “Because I won’t let them,” he vows, slipping his fingers across the curve of her cheek, thumb brushing along the swell of her lower lip. “They’re not going to come after you again, not when it didn’t work, didn’t get them the ransom they wanted.”

“And if they do?”

“They won’t,” he promises again. “I know how these guys think. They won’t touch you again, not after this. Not after the entire job failed, not after it left two guys dead.”

“What about revenge?” she asks, teeth sinking into her lower lip and her eyes sliding away from his, unwilling to meet his eyes like she doesn’t trust him to give her the truth. “Won’t that count for something?”

He shakes his head, grins crookedly. “Its gonna come back on me if it comes back on anyone. I was the one that fucked up, not you.”

“But I was the target,” she counters, wrapping her arm around his bicep, fingers tightening over the skin on his upper arm.

“Even so,” he assures her, tucking a long strand of soft, dark hair behind her ear, fingers lingering along the shell of her ear. “You never hit the same bank twice, not if you’re smart. You’re in the clear now, untouchable.”

“So what?” she scowls. “I just go back, pretend like nothing’s happened?”

He shrugs, gives her a crooked grin. “You do whatever you want. You wanna head to Cuba, run away and join the circus and never see your family again, fine by me.”

“No,” she murmurs soft and sad, her scowl cutting deep, weathered lines across her face. “I wanted…I wanted to go to the Bahamas with you. Sail there. I know it wasn’t real, I’m not stupid, but it, it sounded nice. That was what I wanted.”

“I’d wanna do that too,” he tells her, offering her a hesitant smile, almost shy but still slanted and rueful. His fingers brush across the lines of unhappiness cutting across her face, soft as a whisper, until she scoffs, rolls her eyes at him, not quite angry but not quite letting it go. “And in a perfect world we could. But I gotta account for some things or they’ll think I did it, killed Chris and Martin, took off. Hell, they might even think I managed to get the ransom, took it all for myself. So I gotta set things right. And you gotta go home. At least till you find a real way out.”

“But I want to and you want to,” she points out, lips twisting. “So why don’t we?”

“Course I want to,” he agrees, hating that it has to be this way, hating that he has to break her heart, again. He’s not sure why she thinks he’s a path forward for her, not sure why she wants to see his face for even a moment longer, not sure she’s not projecting some idealized fantasy of a future onto whatever blank canvas she comes across, not even sure he wants to say no to her, that he doesn’t just want to ride off into some doomed sunset with her. 

But he knows, deep in his bones like a certainty, that he has to go back, to Philly, face his masters and account for what happened. He needs to make clear he has nothing to hide even though he has a laundry list of things he’s stuffing in closets and cabinets and under beds, trying to cover with blankets to keep anyone from noticing, a thousand things he needs to hide from his people and all of them lead back to Laurel, like rivers all leading out to the sea, like veins all leading back to the heart, everything within him leads back to Laurel, all his secrets too. 

But he needs to go back to Philly, go back to his masters and convince them what happened was not because of him, had nothing to do with him, just some freak occurrence, some horrible mishap. He needs to convince them he remains loyal, always. “But there’s things I needa do. And there’s things you needa do too, I think. You wanna escape, but you gotta escape the right way, Laurel. I think you know that.”

“So what does that mean?” she asks again, voice accusing, demanding an answer from him, demanding an explanation. “Where do we go from here?”

“I go back to my life and you go back to yours,” he tells her, trying to speak around the hard lump of grief building stiff in his throat. He doesn’t want to leave her, doesn’t want to go back to a life without Laurel, a life without this, these small, soft moments in the glowing darkness of the morning. “You figure out a real escape, the kind you deserve to have. That’s how it has to be.”

“What if I want to run away and join your gang?” she asks, lips cracking into a small, teasing smile, all sharp teeth and flashing eyes. And yet, her eyes are filled with grief, with sorrow because they both know its impossible, both know there’s no universe in which they can know each other beyond this room, beyond the warm, sheltering cocoon of this thin, cramped bed.

“Laurel,” he tells her warningly, because they can’t entertain fantasies, can’t pretend that they can be anything more than this, strangers thrown together, magnets careening towards each other then pulled apart. “You know that’s not possible.”

She hums, blinks sharply against the tears that spring to her eyes. He walks his arm around her body, draws her closer until the long lines of their body meet everywhere they can, fingers tripping gently along her spine. “I don’t want to go back, not to him, not to any of them. I’m not, I can’t be that person anymore, who they want me to be.”

“So don’t,” he tells her. “Fuck em. Be who you wanna be. Get through the next two years and go to Harvard and be, I dunno, President and never look back. You don’t wanna blow all that on anything I’ve got. You’re better than anything I’ve got.”

She sighs, soft and slow, just a little gentle exhale like the breeze. “Yeah,” she nods. “But that’s it? I never see you again?”

“Laurel,” he tells her sharply, warningly, taking her hand in his, hooking his fingertips over hers.

“What?” she snaps. “This matters too. It matters more, its real.”

“Of course its real,” Frank agrees before he can help himself, before he can lie to her about this, this impossible, irresistible thing. “But we still need to be smart, protect ourselves. I can’t just call you up, drop by and hang out. And I gotta fix things back home, fix things with my bosses. I gotta make up for what happened with Chris.”

“What about that postcard?” she whispers, scowling fiercely. “Will you at least send me a postcard, let me know you're ok?”

He nods, presses his forehead against hers, feels the slide of her tears onto Frank’s own cheeks. “Yeah,” he tells her, unsure if he’s lying to her or making her a promise, unsure what he’s offering her, unsure if its anything but an illusion. “Yeah, I’ll, I can do that.”

“Good,” she murmurs, sighs like a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders, some weight she shouldn't have had to carry. “Good, thank you.”

“So,” he begins, not sure if he’s asking a question or offering her an answer. “What now?”

“I suppose I have to go back then,” she sighs. “I suppose that’s all there is.”

He nods, throat stiff with longing. “But maybe not quite yet. Maybe you can stay a while. Just a little longer.”

She nods, eyes slipping closed in something he can only describe as relief. “Ok,” she agrees, though they both know they want forever. “Just a little longer.”

He thinks they drift back to sleep, foreheads pressed together, his arms around her shoulders, palms pressed desperately at her spine, think they both drift back to sleep for a time, soft and slow.

Frank wakes to tres leche. Or rather, wakes to the recollection that he bought Laurel a cake the night before, left it in the car, never expecting her to eat it, to be alive to eat it, had really mostly just expected to eat it himself, afterwards, as some kind of grim, one man wake. He wakes to the nagging thought he can’t escape, wondering if tres leches needs refrigeration, wonders whether it will still be good in the dawn.

Laurel’s awake when he opens his eyes, the blue of her eyes the only thing he sees when he wakes, sees them burst to life when she realizes he’s awake.

“Morning,” she whispers into the space between them.

“Mornin.”

He doesn’t tear his eyes away from hers to look but he knows she smiles, wide and sharp and yet somehow impossibly soft, sweet and young and light, can see the way her smile send echoes across her eyes, ripples across the liquid ocean of her eyes. “Hey.”

He snorts, lips curling. “I’ve got, I dunno, a surprise for you,” he tells her, fighting the urge to lean forward, just an inch, maybe two and press his lips against hers, kiss her, slow and hungry until he no longer draws breath. Instead, Frank just pulls back, grinning wide and crooked. “Or a promise, I guess. Something. But I’ve got it.”

Laurel quirks an eyebrow as Frank pulls away from her, sits up and swings his legs onto the floor, continues to lie, curled and tight and watchful as he grabs the keys, still grinning like an idiot, like he has some impossible, wonderful secret.

He leaves his shoes by the door, heads down to the car on bare feet, padding across the cold ground, slick with morning dew, the asphalt of the parking lot already warming in the sun, the air already thickening with rising humidity.

Frank unlocks the car, finds the cake sitting in the backseat where he left it, looking no worse for wear from the outside. He cracks the box, peeks in at the cake, startled at the way he holds his breath, catching and tripping against his throat. The cake seems fine, if a little off center, its own strange leaning tower of Pisa in confectionary form, listing against the side of the box but otherwise it looks alright, seems to smell alright too. Frank just figures he’ll trust Laurel’s judgement on all things tres leche, disclose where the cake’s lived for the last twelve hours and hope she thinks its safe to eat, hopes she appreciates the gesture even if its not. That’s all he can do, the best he can do.

He closes the box back up, brings it up to her like a pilgrim bringing gifts, offerings to the god he worships, hopes it will be enough to earn her blessing, her mercy.

Laurel’s still curled tight atop the bed when Frank returns, her good arm hugging tight around her middle but her eyes open and staring, her body small and fragile looking alone on the wide bed, a great expanse of covers sprawling out in every direction, a small, lonely island in a great sea.

“Hey,” he calls out, scraping his heels against the towel thrown across the threshold, getting the worst of the dirt and dew from his heels. His face breaks into a grin, pleased and proud and crooked and eager as a small boy, hoping she likes it, hoping she likes him. “I brought you something. Sorry its a little late?”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t sit to see what’s contained in the little white pastry box, but raises her eyebrows, a small, wry smile quirking her lips. “Donuts?” she guesses, taking in the box.

He shakes his head, sheepish, suddenly knowing it won’t be enough, won’t be good enough, not nearly enough for her, for what she deserves. “Nah,” he tells her. “I did one better I hope.”

One eyebrow lifts higher than the other and Laurel pushes herself off the bed, up into a sitting position with only a little grimace and a sharp intake of her breath. “Alright smart guy,” she says, extending her hands to him, whether for the cake or for Frank himself he can’t begin to guess at. “Let’s see what you got.”

He lifts back the folding lid on the box, offers it out to her with a dramatic flourish. “Tres leches,” he explains. “As promised.”  
Laurel goes very, very still, eyes fixed on the tilting little cake, the white pastry box though she makes no move to take it from his hands. Instead, she lifts her eyes to his, a long, lingering glance though her gaze is shuttered and blank like she’s asking herself a hundred thousand questions that Frank can never answer for her.

“I was hoping I’d find some way to get it to you,” he continues, sudden nervousness creeping through his bones like ice spreading slowly across a lake. “I think its still good, but its been sitting in the back of the car all night.”

She looks up, face still blank and neutral like she’s been carved from stone, holds his gaze for long, long seconds unmoving, unblinking except for the slight tremble he sees in her fingers. “Are you going to kill me?” she finally asks, her voice flat, weary and resigned.

“What?” he asks, pulling back from her as though to pull back from the thought, reject it utterly, completely. “What, no.”

“Then what’s this?”

“Tres leches,” he says again, slowly, not understanding where the conversation has suddenly veered, not understanding the questions she’s asking him. “Like you wanted.”

“For my last meal,” Laurel points out, drawing out the syllables like she too is trying to make sense of things, trying to figure out where the wires have been crossed, whether Frank is lying to her about not intending to kill her. “That’s what I said I wanted. Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” he tells her vehemently, forcefully, shaking his head to make sense of things, why she would think he’d leave her alive till now only to kill her. “No, of course not. I just, you wanted it, so I bought some. I thought you’d be happy. I wanted you to be happy.”

“I just, I don’t get it,” she tells him, words still slow and sluggish like she’s fighting against something inside her, something that warns her not to speak, to be cautious and wary of Frank, of the things he offers her, poison disguised as pretty words, pretty gifts, poisoned apples and roses with thorns like razor wire. “Why?”

He shrugs. “Because you said you wanted some. Because you’re owed something good, and this is the best I can do.”

She regards him skeptically, like she’s expecting him to take it back, expecting the rug to be pulled from beneath her feet, suspicious and wary like she’s faced too many betrayals, too many good things that turned out to be illusions, too many empty promises and hands that were meant to comfort her being used only to cause her pain. He knows she’s faced too much pain, too much fear from him, has been hurt too badly by Frank himself to ever really trust him without the briefest moments of hesitation, of doubt. Finally though, she allows herself to smile, small and thin, but a smile all the same, like she’s weighed him and judged him and decided that he’s no threat, no danger to her, that she can trust him, in this at least, that he means what he says when he offers her something like the cake, small and weighty and true, something done for her, with no hope of reward, no hope of benefit to Frank himself.

“You went to the one off 45th, didn’t you?” she asks as the slow creeping smile spreads across her face, molasses warming in the sun.

He shrugs casually, can’t help the wide grin that twists his lips, pleased at her pleasure, wanting only to satisfy her, give her anything, everything she wants. “I’m good at following directions.”

For a long moment it seems like she’s going to scowl, say something scathing, something angry, but then Laurel smoothes her face over, cracks another little grin. “Well, lets see how good this is. You got a fork handy?”

“Uh,” he shrugs. “No, I guess I messed that one up.”

She rolls her eyes, the gesture impossibly charming, impossibly comforting that she’s let down her guard enough to tease him again. “Check inside the box.”

He does, finds a plastic wrapped fork tucked inside against the side of the box. He pulls it out, licks at the streak of frosting left on the plastic by the tilting cake. “This system doesn’t seem very smart.”

She laughs, light and breathy. “I’m not sure they’re expecting you to try and stash the cake in the car overnight.”

“Nah, probably not,” he chuckles. “But they could’ve at least given us a second fork.”

He holds it out to her, waits with catching breath as she hesitates, then reaches out, takes the fork from his fingers, deciding, he thinks, to trust him, trust that he simply brought the cake for her, because she wanted it without any ulterior motive, trusts that she’s safe. “Promise I’ll share,” she tells him, though the greedy, eager way she rips the plastic from around the fork makes him wonder about that.

“Nah,” he says, coming closer to the bed again, sitting heavy against one corner, watching as Laurel shifts her weight closer to him, legs tucked under her, knee nearly brushing against his thigh, pulls the cake box from his lap. “Its all you. Just lemme have a taste.”

She’s already got a forkful of cake halfway to her mouth, closes her eyes in pleasure as it hits her tongue, makes a little noise almost like a moan, as Frank tries desperately to ignore the noise, to not pay it any attention, realizing as he does that she hasn’t eaten in somewhere close to twenty four hours, is probably starving, stomach gnawing and grinding with hunger. He focuses on that, focuses on the long savoring bites she takes, eyes still closed as she tastes the cake.

“God,” she moans again, and again Frank has to brace himself against the things in him her noise of pleasure makes him feel, the way it makes his stomach tilt, his breath hitch. She takes another bite, long and slow, a little streak of frosting caught against the corner of her mouth that he wants to press his lips against, wants to scrub his thumb across. “This is so good. I honestly wouldn’t even mind if you were using the cake as a distraction to kill me. It’d almost be worth it.”

Frank quirks his eyebrows, tries to ignore the way she still acts like he's going to hurt her, kill her, using the cake as a distraction, as bait to achieve the aims of the job that ended a few minutes after midnight with gunshots and blood and ruined flesh. “I’m glad it lived up to the hype.”

“Here,” she says around a mouthful, holding out a forkful to him, piled high with cake and frosting. “Try some. Its perfect.”

He reaches out to take the fork but Laurel pulls her hand back with a little shake of her head, a little quirking smile on her lips. She offers him the fork again, holds it out and this time Frank leans forward, wraps his lips around the fork and takes the offered bite. Laurel shifts closer again, kicks her legs off to the side, her shin sliding into his knee, shoulder glancing against Frank’s as she leans into him

“Wow,” he breathes as Laurel takes the fork back, stabs it into the cake again, because it is good, light and sweet, the cake airy even as its clearly heavy and rich with milk and cream. “This is good. Really damn good.”

She nods, crooked little grin splitting her face as she takes another bite. “I know. I’ve never had a better breakfast.”

She offers him another forkful, grins again as he darts forward, takes the bite into his mouth, teeth tugging at the tines of the fork until Laurel snorts, pulls it gently to get Frank to let go, as he smirks, wide and bracing. “Even better than my pasta?” he asks her, feigning hurt.

Laurel takes a moment to consider, corner of her mouth twisting. She still has a little streak of frosting against the corner of her mouth, somehow not noticing it yet and Frank had to ball his hands into fists to keep from reaching out, scrubbing his thumb across her lower lip. “Pasta’s a close second,” she tells him around a bright laugh. “But I tend to prefer sweet breakfast to savory.”

Frank grins as she offers him another bite. “I’ll admit,” he allows as she hands him the fork this time, lets Frank spear his own couple of bites before handing the fork back to her, trading it back and forth as they slowly consume the sweet cake. “This is way better than my pasta.”

They trade the fork back and forth, taking bites for themselves, feeding the other, hands and limbs tangled as they work their way through the cake. Laurel lists into him, body sagging against his side, soft and warm, head tucked against his shoulder and her hair spilling across his chest. “You know the only that’d make this better?” she murmurs against his skin.

“Can't imagine what.”

“Coffee,” she tells him with a little yawn into his shoulder.

“Definitely,” he agrees with a nod. “I could go get some if you want.”

“No,” she says, hand against Frank’s forearm stopping his movements. “Just stay, ok. I'd rather have you than coffee.”

“You're secretly a bit of a softie, you know that?” he whispers against her hair, arm curling around her shoulders. “Wouldn't’ve pegged you for it. But you really are underneath all that.”

She snorts, rolls her eyes but he can see her cheeks color and her eyes slide away. “Less than you are.”

“Never said I wasn’t,” he shrugs, because its true. He’s always been the kind of man that wears his heart on his sleeve. He couldn’t back in juvie, where any expression of feeling, of emotion was regarded as weakness, but now, well, now he can barely keep his thoughts, his feelings from his face, his eyes. Now that he’s able to feel again without danger, without violence or punishment or ridicule, well, he wants to make up for lost time, he wants to feel everything, disguise nothing. And he certainly hasn’t been able to disguise any of his feelings where Laurel’s concerned, the girl ripping through any and every defenses he tries to construct. “But you're a softie too. You like me.”

Laurel rolls her eyes again but can’t disguise her wry little grin. “Only a little.”

He shrugs, dizzy with the realization that two days ago, thee days ago this girl would have resisted the idea of liking him with everything she had, would have fought the idea with every ounce of the terrible fierce strength inside her. And now, well, now she’s willing to admit to the things they both know to be true, the terrible, crippling wonderful, heart-stopping things, the things they both wish weren’t true, the things they can’t bring themselves to end, to sever. 

And knowing she can admit to it, can embrace, even a little, the things in her heart, well its terrifying too and crippling and wonderful and heart-stopping, knowing she is willing to allow herself to feel those things, knowing she’s willing to trust him with them, believing that he’ll protect them, protect her, won’t betray her and the things they both feel.

“Well, that’s good,” he tells her, crooked, teasing grin only making her shy one spread wider as he hooks his fingers through hers. “Cause I like you a little bit too.”

She huffs out a little laugh, rolls her eyes at him. “Like I hadn’t already figured that out.”

“Well that’s ok,” he tells her. “I still wanted you to know.”

Laurel grows quiet then, sober, teeth worrying her lower lip as she toys with his fingers. “So how’re we going to do this then?”

Frank must look confused, because she continues though he’s not confused, far from it, knows exactly what she’s talking about and simply lacks an answer, a good one, a bad one, any kind of answer for her at all. “How’re we gonna get back to real life?”

“I don’t know,” he admits tightening his fingers around hers because he doesn’t want to let her go yet, not ever. “We could just call you a cab or something.”

Laurel makes a little noise, sharp and angry. “A cab?”

“It’d probably work,” he shrugs.

Her scowl deepens. “And then they ask the cabbie where he picked me up and someone gives them a description of you and that’s the end of that. I don’t mind lying and saying you weren't involved, that they’ve got the wrong guy, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make it harder for me.”

“So no cab then,” he murmurs, taking their joined hands and covering hers with his other. “You want me to drop you somewhere? Somewhere without cameras or people or…”

She nods, still worrying her bottom lip. “I think that’s the way to do it.”

“Can’t be your house though,” Frank muses, remembering the guard outside the development, the cameras outside her house.

“No,” she agrees slowly. “Hospital maybe, I’d really like to get checked out.”

Frank’s heart seizes at her wry little grin, at her weary eye roll because for all of this, she is still a girl with a broken wrist, bruised ribs, still a girl who’s collarbone is probably broken and he can’t let himself keep forgetting that, keep sweeping it under the rug because its easy and simple to do that. For every moment their together, for every moment she rests her body against his, threads her fingers through his, for every moment she comforts him, Laurel’s body is shot through with pain, a dull droning hum or sharp spikes of pain, constant and unceasing. And the thing that she deserves, the thing she deserves more than anything, is to be free of that pain, finally. “Ok,” he nods. “Just tell me where to go.”

“There’s a hospital close by I think,” she tells him. “Mile or two. But I don’t know about their camera setup. I’m sure the ER has them.”

Frank nods, wanting to laugh, snort at the absurdity, at how they’re basically planning this like a job, figuring out how to get in, get out without being spotted, getting caught. Nothing has been simple with this job, nothing has been easy, nothing has been straight or gone the way it was supposed to. He shouldn't be surprised that its ending in the same crooked, strange way.

“Yeah, that makes sense. They have a parking garage?”

She nods. “I don’t know about cameras though.”

“What’s nearby?” he asks her. “Someplace without them, without a lot of people.”

“There’s a bodega about block away,” she says with a little frown, not looking entirely convinced of it. “They have cameras but I doubt they work.”

Frank’s eyebrows raise in skepticism. “Yeah?”

Laurel shrugs. “Can’t guarantee it. But I doubt it.”

“Ok,” he tells her, stomach clenching in worry and the beginnings of loss. “Lets try that.”

“Cool,” she says, though Laurel too sounds like she thinks it’s the opposite of cool, sounds positively miserable, scowling fiercely as her fingers tighten around her.

“Ok,” he says again. “Ok.”

Laurel sighs heavily, slides forward and off the bed, feet slipping to the floor. “Well,” she murmurs, tugging on their joined hands. “I guess this is goodbye then.”

He stands, following her to his feet, keeps their hands joined, unwilling to let her go, not yet, not ever and wraps his free arm around her thin shoulders. “Not quite yet,” he whispers against her hair, trying to summon a smile from somewhere. “We can at least wait until the cake’s finished.”

There’s still a spot of frosting dotting the corner of her mouth, her upper lip and before he can help himself, Frank reaches out, smoothes his thumb across her expanse of her lip, wipes the liquid from her mouth. Laurel pulls back sharply, surprise in her eyes and she blinks at him for long moments as panic surges through him. He should not have done that, he thinks as silence ripples through the room like a bomb. 

“I,” he starts, not really sure what he’s going to say, what he can say to excuse his behavior. “I didn't…Sorry.”

Laurel bites her lower lip, eyes swinging away from him before suddenly surging forward, crossing the small distance between their bodies, her lips pressing quick and soft against his.

This time it's Frank that pulls back in shock. “What…”

“Shit,” Laurel breathes sharply, one hand going to her lips, her eyes suddenly wide, shocked. “Shit.”

He silences her with the press of his lips against hers, hard, insistent before she can say anything more. Laurel makes a noise of surprise, her body stiffening, but she quickly relaxes, melts into the kiss. It starts off chaste, closed-mouth, but soon Laurel’s lips part, and Frank’s tongue darts out, tangles with hers, his hand rising to slip into her hair, draw her closer to him.

He swallows the little noise of desire she makes, swallows it down as it shoots through his body, settles low in his gut, adds itself to the craving he has for her, adds and doubles until he's not sure his body can contain it. He can taste the remnants of the tres leche on her tongue, sweet and soft and Frank thinks that he never wants to stop kissing her. Laurel must feel the same way because when the kiss breaks to allow their breaths to steady, she doesn't pull back more than half an inch and Frank can feel her breath, quick and warm, fanning against his cheek, his mouth. She smiles and Frank kisses her again, nipping at her bottom lip until her breathing goes ragged and torn.

“Fuck,” she whispers against his cheek. Her lips are swollen, and it takes all his willpower not to kiss her again. Instead he presses his lips, his teeth against the soft, smooth place behind her ear, the rough stubble of his beard scraping against her skin, marking her, claiming her. “Fuck.”

“We can do that too,” he growls against her neck, loving that he’s completely stolen words from her, not caring about what a terrible, horrible, doomed idea it is to suggest these things, to even think these things about Laurel, to entertain the idea that even kissing her is possible. “If you wanted.”

“What?” she asks, her voice ragged and hoarse, breathy and uncertain like she’s not even sure about the meaning of words any longer.

“Fuck. We can fuck.”

“Yes,” she breathes, her hand fisting into his hair, pressing his lips to her skin.

Frank chuckles against her skin, tongue darting out to taste her, the sweet, sticky taste of her. One hand slips beneath the hem of her shirt, ghosting against the skin of her stomach. He’s pushing up the fabric, intent on baring more of her skin when there’s a bang outside the room.

They pull back instantly, eyes wide, breathing harsh. The door next to them slams again and the hear footsteps on the walkway outside their room. Laurel steps back, settling heavy against the bed and sighs heavily.

“That was,” she begins, pauses, like she doesn't quite know what to say.

“Awesome,” he finishes, dropping to he bed beside her, close but not willing, not capable of touching her yet, because he's not going to lie, not to her, not about this; he's man enough to own it, own how he feels, even if it damns what they have, the tentative, hesitant thing between them. But shutting up and keeping silent can damn a thing just as quickly, just as fatally, and Frank’s a man that tries to live for the truth where he can. So, well, he’ll lay his cards out and see where it gets him.

Laurel’s silent for a long moment, so long that Frank’s sure he’s fucked up somehow, completely, irrevocably, her face still and unreadable except for the nervous habit she has of chewing on her lower lip. Her eyes are big and wide and almost fearful, though nothing else in her face gives a hint of emotion away. 

“Yeah,” she finally admits, and there’s a cautiousness, a hesitation, in her voice that makes Frank wonder at, makes him hurt for her, because somehow he knows it's a caution with a cause. “It was. We should do it again sometime. Call me sometime and we will.”

He nods, dumbly, mutely, enthralled by her, spellbound by her, by the things she creates in him. “Ok, yeah.  I will.”


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are yall, the end of kidnapper fic. Hope the last chap meets expectations and kinda catches y'all by surprise.  
> Would love to hear everyone's feedback on this guy. Drop by and leave a comment/kudo if you like what you read.   
> (I'd kinda like to hit 200 on this puppy, so...)

He doesn’t of course. He could if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. Frank drops her off at the bodega just beyond the hospital, watches Laurel go with his heart in his throat, breath catching with grief, a feeling like loss settling like a weight across his heart. He lets her go and doesn’t let himself linger, doesn’t let himself watch her leave.

Instead, Frank gets rid of the rental car, heads back to Philly. He doesn’t call her, doesn’t send her a postcard, just slinks back to his masters, spends weeks convincing them that he was somehow out of the house when the fire happened, when Laurel somehow slipped her bonds, fled the basement back to her father, back to her life.

They don’t believe him and he knows it, but eventually they have to accept his version of events, no one left alive to correct him and no proof that the truth is anything other than what Frank says it is. And Laurel clams up when questioned by the police about how she escaped, where she was held, doesn’t to anything that could jeopardize the story Frank tells them . The Palm Beach police suspect the house fire was due to the kidnapping, to Laurel’s escape, of course, but she refuses to say anything and eventually the silence that Laurel offers them, the ignorance Frank clings to become the only truth anyone knows. 

He doesn’t reach out to her, even then, even after the heat, the attention dies down, but Frank does read the news coverage out of Florida, sees the pictures of Laurel, her shoulders curved in, small and uncomfortable, thin and drawn, her eyes hollow and vacant and her arm stabilized in a sling that practically dwarfs her tiny body, sees the way she scowls and clamps her jaw shut, glares through the cameras and refuses to answer any of the questions posed to her.

Like with Frank, the questions eventually slow, then cease entirely as they’re all, police and press and her family, her friends, forced to simply accept that no answers will be coming. Frank is allowed back into the fold, allowed back on jobs, the suspicion that he was somehow responsible for the death of his two partners, the failure of the job eventually easing, and some thousand miles away the police eventually grow bored of Laurel’s silence, frustrated with her refusal to offer them any sliver of information that can explain who took her, how she got free.

He’s eventually allowed back on jobs, eventually allowed back into the fold, the doubt, the wariness around him easing and everything returns to normal. Except nothing is normal, nothing can ever be normal again because Chris is gone.

It takes about a year, but Frank gets out of the game, goes to Mauro one day and confesses to the other man that after Chris he simply doesn’t have the heart for crime anymore, doesn’t know what he’s going to do but he knows it can’t be crime, confesses that he’s always looking over his shoulder, always jumping at shadows because he’s always terrified something’s going to happen, can’t trust his partners anymore because none of them are Chris, none of them are men he’s known nearly his whole life, trusts with his life.

He says nothing about how now after Laurel it's like his skin no longer sits right on his shoulders, like his body is a size too small to contain all the things inside it, a nagging chafing feeling against his skin like it's being rubbed raw, like it doesn't fit quite right anymore, like knowing Laurel had changed his entire DNA in some fundamental way. He doesn’t say anything to Mauro about how with every law he breaks, every crime he commits he sees Laurel’s face behind his eyes, tattooed against his eyelids, sees the hurt and anger shift across her skin, her disappointment, her accusation settling like a weight over his heart.

And Mauro lets him go, eventually, can see in Frank’s eyes that he isn’t a good asset anymore, will only get himself hurt or killed or captured if he continues on, will only risk other people, the business Mauro’s built. So he lets Frank go. And still, Frank doesn’t reach out, doesn’t try to reach out to Laurel again. Its better that way, he tells himself, better he allow her to get back to normal, to heal, to forget, as much as she can, the terrible things that happened in that basement, the things done to her and the things Laurel herself was forced to do. He thinks its better if he doesn't remind her of who she had to become to survive, the lines she had to cross and the compromises she had to make with the good parts of herself. So Frank lets her go, as much as he can, he lets her go.

He gets a job again, eventually, reaches out to the shrink he had in juvie who eventually helped spring him free with the help of his lawyer wife, reaches out to see if Sam Keating can do him one more favor, cashes in the offer the other man made to help Frank out if he ever needed it. 

Frank’s given a job with Sam’s wife, the defense attorney, as an assistant, as a gofer, an investigator, as an all around hired hand. He uses some of the skills he already has, the skills he learns with Annalise to keep up with Laurel, with her life, watches her get back to something like normal, or as normal as she can be after days tied up in a basement, after she killed or almost killed the man who kept her hostage. Frank watches her continue on with student government and the Latinx student association and the yearbook and watches her quit, without much fanfare, the cross country team, watches the lingering hurt remain, like a bruise, across her eyes. He watches her graduate near the top of her class, head off to Brown, not Harvard, watches her social media virtually dry up in the aftermath of the kidnapping, sees all the pictures he can scrounge up of her showing her scowling, showing a flintiness in her eyes Frank is certain wasn’t there before.

But then Laurel gets to Brown and some of the tension seems to ease from her, at least hundreds of miles away and through the computer as Frank continues to watch her, watch her life as best he can from afar. She seems to smile again, seems freer somehow, less haunted. But still, Frank keeps his distance, doesn’t reach out, just continues to watch her, longing and hungry.

He doesn’t forget about her, the wanting, the craving need for her never easing, but it gets easier to bear and eventually Frank lets himself believe that she’s forgotten about him, that she’s letting herself get back to normal, get back to a place that’s good, that’s healing from the terrible things, that Laurel is letting herself forget, letting herself move past what was done to her, what she did herself.

And then, three years and change after he leaves Laurel in a deserted parking lot outside a crumbling bodega in South Florida, there’s a knock on his door.

He’s not expecting anyone, but Frank’s gotten complacent in the years since he’s left crime mostly behind, doesn’t expect enemies or cops coming after him, certainly doesn’t expect them to be knocking on his door. So he doesn’t bother to check the peephole, just swings open the door.

And on his doorstep, shoulder leaning against the doorframe, her face, her eyes blank and guarded, her mouth set in a frown, he finds Laurel, a little older, a little wearier, her skin a little paler and her hair a little darker, a little shorter now, but still the same girl he knew for a week three years before, her eyes sharp, jaw sharper and as familiar as if he'd only just left her days before.

“Laurel?” he gasps out, fingers clenching around the door until his knuckles are pale and bloodless, like he's holding himself up, keeping his footing only by clinging to the stability of the door.

“Hey Frank,” she greets, her words casual, her slanting smile casual, but Frank can see the tension, the stiff, thick, nervous worry that runs like a current through her words, setting her spine straight and her hands balled into fists. “You’re not an easy man to find.”

“What’re you doing here?” he asks, voice strangled and thin, dizzy with confusion, with incomprehension as the world tilts under his feet, spins of its axis and threatens to spill Frank out into space, out into something dark and unknown and terrible.

She’s not supposed to be here, in Philly, she’s supposed to be back in Florida or off at college in Rhode Island or somewhere, anywhere else. She’s not supposed to be here, in Philly, standing on his doorstep like she just ran out for milk, like she just stepped out five minutes ago and not three years.

She shrugs, still studiously casual, but Frank can hear the way her words are tight with the effort it takes her to remain calm, controlled and contained, can see the clench in her jaw, the weight settled against her shoulder. “I told my dad I was spending Christmas in Philly. Made up some boyfriend I was visiting. I mean, it's partly true isn't it?” she asks with another little shrug, her grin full of the wickedness and promise he remembers so well.

“I, uh…,” he starts, stutters into a stop, unsure of what to say, unsure of how to respond to her words, to Laurel herself, unsure of what to make of her here, on his doorstep. He isn't even entirely sure she’s not there to kill him. “How’d you find me?”

She rolls her eyes, lets out a little huffing scoff and Frank finds himself wanting nothing more than to step forward, reach out and wrap his fingers around hers, draw her body to his, cradle her against his chest and breathe in the scent of her, wants to close the few feet between their bodies and let himself come home. He wants to turn her scoff into a stuttering, hiccuping breath of surprise, of building want. “You’re hard to find, but not that hard.”

“How?” he asks again.

“You gave me enough to start with,” she shrugs. “They identified your friend eventually. Chris Capra. I found where he was locked up as a kid, figured that was the best place to start. Found inmates he woulda been serving time with, narrowed things to anyone younger than him, anyone who went in pretty young.”

“That woulda been a couple hundred people maybe,” Frank points out, his breath still caught tight across his chest, still trying to get his brain to catch up to reality, to Laurel suddenly showing up at his door. He feels drunk, feels like all the oxygen has been sucked from the room, feels like he’s trying to walk on unstable ground, the world unsteady beneath his feet, reality unsteady against his mind.

“It was,” she tells him matter of factly, though her voice remains guarded. “But you gave away more than you thought. Anthony Petruzzelli? There’s not too many of them around, thankfully. Threw out anyone who wasn't Catholic, which didn’t help much. Found their local parish churches, found three that had a Father Patrick serving when the Anthony’s were young. Then I compared the inmate lists of who served with Chris with who grew up with the Anthony's. There was only you.  Everything else you told me, all the other slip-ups, they all matched.  Your sisters and your brother the mummer and everything you told me.  It was all true.  You never lied to me.”

“That took you three years?” Frank asks, voice tight, feeling like he’s trying to speak around a lump of something hard and tight and stifling in his throat that feels like shock, like madness, like building desire. And still, still he wants to slip forward, slip his body against Laurel and draw her to him, still wants to cling to her like a lifeline, like a ghost he never thought he’d see again, a mirage that will vanish if he looks away.

“Please,” Laurel scoffs. “It took me four months. I spent a year waiting for you to give me something, longer than that hating you for forgetting about me, for making it clear you didn’t give a shit.”

“And then?”

“And then I decided that if I still wanted to see you, I was gonna have to find you myself. That if there’s anything knowing you’s taught me its that I have to rescue my damn self.”

“So,” Frank asks, leaning against the door, wanting to get if over with if she’s only there to kill him or scream at him or accuse him of failing her. He knows he deserves to die, that she deserves to be the one to kill him, he knows already that he’s failed her. He isn't sure what she can say to him he doesn’t already know. And he isn't sure he can stand to have her accuse him, to tell him all the terrible things they both know he’s done, all the way he’s hurt and betrayed her, all the way Laurel’s still hurting because of him. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to hear he recite a list of his crimes. “Are you here to tell me you hate me or what?”

She laughs sharply, her teeth glinting. “I don’t know why I’m here. To tell you I found you I guess. To remind you I’m still here, still waiting.”

“What? Why?” he grits out. “Why’re you waiting?”

“Because you promised me and then you abandoned me too,” she growls. “And I’m not letting you get away with that.”

“Ok,” he breathes out, nods slowly. “I abandoned you. Add that to the list of ways I’ve hurt you. I know that.”

“You haven't hurt me,” she says, eyebrows pulling in and her lips twisting. “Or, not the way you mean. It took me a while to really understand what happened back then, but I know you never hurt me. Not like that.”

“Yeah,” he gasps because this is worse, so much worse than Laurel accusing him, reciting the list of his crimes. Telling him he did nothing wrong is so much deeper, so much worse because its just another crime to add to the list, just another thing he’s done wrong, somehow convincing her his crimes are no crimes at all, somehow twisting her mind up until he becomes an innocent man again, until what's real is false in her mind, until she doesn’t know anything but the lies he’s sold her. “I did. Of course I did.”

Laurel scowls at him, leans her whole body against the door jam, heavy and boneless. “I did a lot of therapy after I got back. Like, a lot. And it took a while to sort out what feelings were real and what weren’t and what was anger and what was, I dunno, survival. But I can promise you, I know you were just as much a prisoner as I was, that you weren't the one that hurt me,” she looks down at her feet, teeth sinking into her lower lip in a gesture that’s so familiar, even now, even three years later, that it makes Frank’s chest ache, deeply, with longing, makes the need to reach out to her build until it becomes an inferno, until Frank isn't sure he’ll be able to resist anymore, isn't sure he can stand to breathe around it. “I guess that’s why I’m here; to tell you that.”

“How could you think that?” he asks her, practically pleading with her now. How could she still think these things, these falsehoods, now after all this time has passed. How could Laurel possibly think he’s a good man, a man who didn’t hurt her, ruin her. “After what I did to you?”

She smiles thinly, mouth sharp with the echoes of distant pain. “I questioned it a few times, but you were a victim too. In a different way than me, but…”

“I’m not,” he tells her sharply, his voice a warning because he can’t do this, can’t have her telling him these things, these bizarre lies she’s concocted to make sense of what was done to her that have him as some noble anti-hero, some victim who didn’t willingly kidnap her, tie her up, who wasn’t going to put a bullet in her head. “I wasn’t.”

Laurel scowls, nails pinging lightly against the wood of his apartment door, impatient like she just wants Frank to catch up, to stop falling behind, failing her. “You’re not doing crime anymore,” she points out, shoulders hitching in that same little gesture like a shrug but falls far short of actually turning into a shrug. “You got out like two years ago. You went straight, or mostly straight almost as soon as you could. So don’t try and sell me on the lie that you weren't a victim too, that you didn’t try to help me how you could.”

“That’s not right,” he tells her shaking his head. They’re both leaned against the door, Laurel against the frame, Frank against the open door, like they have to cling to the wood to keep upright, keep afloat, keep from surging across the distance separating their bodies and falling into each other's arms.

“Tell me you don’t check up on me,” she tells him then, voice edged. “Tell me you don’t check my social media, don’t Google my name every chance you get. Tell me you don’t check my Harvard grades.”

“You don’t go to…” he begins, the words automatic and spilling from his lips before he can stop them.

“I know,” she tells him, lips quirking into a small, thin smirk, her eyebrows raised in a challenge. “And you do too.”  
Frank sighs, run his free hand across his beard, isn't sure what else he can say.

“So,” she says, her voice still clipped, businesslike. “Now that we’ve cut through the bullshit, are you gonna let me in or what?”

He gawks at her, at her brusqueness, at the way Laurel simply bowls through his objections as though he hasn’t spoken them at all. “How’d you even find where I live?” he asks, feeling like he’s moving in slow motion, his brain unable to keep up with the things happening around him, with the rapid connections Laurel has been making. “Its not listed.”

Laurel shrugs, rolls her eyes. “You're not the only person who knows how to use the internet you know. I went by your job, convinced an intern to cough up your address.”

“An intern?”

She laughs, light and quick and flashing and Frank realizes he doesn’t think he’s ever heard that sound from her, never heard a laugh from her that wasn’t tinged with something like bitterness, like grief. He wants to hear it again, never wants to hear her laugh in any other way again. He wants, Frank realizes, too late, far too late, to keep hearing her laugh, doesn’t want to send her away, doesn’t want to spend anymore time without her. “I told him you knocked me up. He couldn’t give me your info fast enough.”

“You…,” he begins before words flee him completely.

Laurel rolls her eyes, smile still splitting her lips wide, pleased at her trickery. “Relax. I figured it was better than telling him the truth. ‘So Frank kidnapped me three years ago and I tracked him here and I’d really like it if you forked over his address, k?’” she mimics, tilting her head to the side and watching him through narrowed eyes, the humor almost, but not quite, fleeing from her face. “Trust me, getting knocked up is the better lie.”

“He’s not supposed to do that,” Frank growls because he doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how else to react to Laurel’s presence on his doorstep, doesn’t know what to think, what to feel, whether he should send her away or beg her to stay, to never leave him again.

She laughs again, the sound breathy and tinkling. “I can be pretty persuasive when I want. I uh, I thought about calling,” she confesses, glancing away again, her teeth worrying her lower lip. The movement catches Frank’s attention like a magnet, pulls his gaze in and refuses to let him go, his eyes fixated on her lips, full and pink and all Frank wants, all Frank has ever wanted is to press his lips against hers again, taste the soft sweetness of her skin. “But I figured it’d be harder to blow me off this way.”

“I’m not,” he starts, pauses and sighs and steadies his breathing, steadies his mind. “I’m not blowing you off. I’m just confused, I guess, why you’re here.”

“Because I wanted to see you,” she says simply. “Because I spent a year waiting to hear from you, a year hating you because I didn’t and part of another year tracking you down. And through all that, all I wanted was to see you again.”

“And now?” Frank asks, voice strangled.

“Now I just don’t want to let you go.”

“Ok,” he nods.

“Ok?” she asks, voice strangled and small and tentative, like she can’t quite trust her own ears.

“Yeah,” Frank says, sucking in a long, deep breath, feeling like he’s about to step off a cliff, take a step into some strange new world, uncertain of his footing, uncertain of the landscape, what he’ll find beneath his feet. He just knows he needs to keep Laurel in his life, now that he has her he doesn’t want to, can’t let her go again. He walked away from her once, isn't sure he’s capable of doing it again. He just knows that in this one, unimportant, inconsequential universe, he’s been given a second chance with her, a chance to do things right. All he knows is that he’s not going to blow it this time. All he knows is that in every universe that matters, this one included, he could love her, may already love her and that, that one thing, is the only thing that matters. “I don’t want to let you go either.”

“Ok,” she echoes, lets out a little breath, a little sigh like the tension is slipping from her body, like relief floods through her. “Good.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t write,” he confesses, his guilt gnawing at his bones. “Or call or anything. I didn’t, I didn’t want to remind you if it wasn't something you wanted. You looked happier after a bit. I didn’t want to ruin that.”

“I told you I did,” she tells him through gritted teeth. “I told you to write me.”

“I know,” he says miserably because he’s fucked up, knows he has. He’s made them both miserable for three years and he didn’t have to, could have fixed it so, so easily. He had the solution in front of him the whole time “But that was before you went home. I didn't…I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”

“And so you hurt me more,” she hisses, glares furiously up at him.

He nods. “Yeah, I did.”

“Don’t do it again,” she tells him, still glaring though the force of it raking over his skin softens somewhat, like she can’t remain angry, like she’s already forgiven him his trespasses.

“What?”

“Just,” she sighs, anger slipping out of her. “Just don’t do it again, ok? If you don’t know what I want, just ask me, alright.”

“What?” he says again because he really, really doesn’t understand what's happening, how she can even stand to look at him after what he did, after what he did in the three years since his first horrible crime. “You want to see more of me? Again?”

Laurel snorts. “You think I did all this work just to drop by and tell you I’m pissed?”

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “I’ve never been able to figure you out.”

She slips forward then, lifting up on her toes to press her lips against his, slow and gentle, barely more than the whisper of her mouth against his. Its just a whisper, and yet, its enough to set the flame roaring to life, to light the fuse inside him that’s just been waiting for a spark. Frank opens his mouth to her, arms reaching out to catch at her body, wanting more, always wanting more, but Laurel is pulling back, a coy smile across her lips though he can see the black of her pupils, wide with hunger and want. “That help you figure things out?”

Frank lets out a little huffing laugh, surprised and craving in equal measure as his fingers drift to his lips. “Yeah. Yeah a little.”  
He crosses the distance between them again, catches her elbow as his other hand slips behind her back, draws her body against his chest. The hand at her arm drifts to cup her cheek, slip a long, dark strand of hair behind her ear, catch agains the arc of her cheekbone. Laurel’s breath hitches as he draws her close, and he feels the pounding in her chest, the heavy building want.

“Could we try it again though?” he asks, crooked smile twisting his lips, stomach jumping with something like anticipation, like certainty. “Just to make sure I really, really get it.”

Laurel smiles up at him like the sun, like spring, bright and pure and blinding and shy, nods softly.

And then he’s kissing her, closing the last few inches between their bodies and his lips meet hers, tongue sliding out to taste her and the hunger in him that’s been kept at bay suddenly roaring to life, the desperate, aching spark that he pretended he no longer felt turned into an inferno in the blink of an eye. Except the kiss isn't hungry, isn't ravenous and consuming, isn't edged with cloying heat and restless need. Somehow, somehow, its soft still, soft and sweet, like cool water running over heated flesh, like sunlight flickering through the leaves, like being welcomed home. “I’m sorry,” he tells her when he steps back, breath coming hard and fast and his heart tripping over the things he’s going to say, the things he’s no longer going to try and hide from her, from himself. “But I’ll listen to you from now on. For as long as you want me.”

She nods, tongue darting out to wet her lip, taste the parts of him the linger against her mouth. “Lets start over then,” she tells him. “Start this right. Maybe see where it gets us.”

One of Frank’s hands still lingers at her side, working long, slow patterns into the sharp angle of her hipbone and though he can tell by the quick thrum of her pulse in the hollow of her throat that his fingers are not unappreciated, Laurel steps quickly back and out of his arms. 

“Ok,” he tells her because if there’s one thing, one thing in the universe he’s certain of its that he’ll agree to anything this girl asks of him, will follow her anywhere, will bow at her command.

She doesn’t do any of that, doesn’t give him any orders, doesn’t demand he move, Laurel simply takes in a deep breath, smiles as she lets it out, wide and bracing until he can see her eyeteeth, even her shoulders hitching like she’s letting a great burden slip off them. “Well then,” she says and holds out her hand to him. “Hi, I’m Laurel.”

“Frank,” he replies, taking her hand in his before he even realizes what he’s doing, what it is he’s agreeing to, the great, weighty, irreversible thing he’s agreeing to, the things he’s allowing into his life, the things he’s agreeing to without even a second thought. He doesn’t care what else happens, what consequences he faces from this decision, all Frank knows is that Laurel is here, now, miraculously and inevitably and he refuses to let her go again. Not in this universe and not in any other.

He doesn’t know if he loves her, doesn’t know if he can love her, doesn’t know if she loves him. He doesn’t know what the future has in store for them. But what he knows is that he needs to try, needs to give it a chance, give them a chance, needs to find out because he knows, with a certainty that leaves him breathless and reeling, that he doesn’t have it in him to walk away from Laurel again, doesn’t want to go back to a world without her in it. “Frank Delfino.”

The smile Laurel gives him steals his breath, sucks all the oxygen out of the room like she’s a fire, a black hole consuming everything, even light, ravenous and insatiable, like she really is a goddess and has simply decided that oxygen no longer exists, that Frank’s need to breathe, to live is of no consequence. Her smile both stops his heart and becomes his reason to live.

She looks, he thinks when he can think again, form thoughts and processes and his synapses aren’t all devoted to Laurel, only Laurel and the perfect thing that is her smile, like she wants to kiss him again, looks like she wants to take him in her arms and never let him go. Instead, she simply shakes his hand, her fingers in his familiar and alien at the same time, rougher, Frank thinks, than he remembers, and yet, somehow, still perfectly, achingly Laurel. 

“And I can’t tell you,” she says to him, her voice rippling with what he eventually has to decide is joy, anticipation, bubbling, blinding laughter. “How pleased I am to finally meet you Frank.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Mountain Goats song (which is taken from Toad’s line to Mario when he’s rescued in the OG Mario Bros) “Thank You Mario, but Our Princess is in Another Castle,” a song written from Toad’s POV when he’s kidnapped by Bowser or whatever and thinks he’s basically gonna die in the dungeon there until Mario comes along after Peach and finds Toad instead.


End file.
